CDucatiotral 


EDITED  BY  HENRY  SUZZALLO 

PROFESSOR    OF  THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF   EDUCATION 
TEACHERS   COLLEGE,   COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY 


VOLUNTEER  HELP 
TO  THE   SCHOOLS 

BY 

ELLA  LYMAN  CABOT 

MEMBER   OF  THE   MASSACHUSETTS   BOARD   OF   EDUCATION 


HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

BOSTON,  NEW   YORK   AND   CHICAGO 


fttoetfibe 


Cambridge 


COPYRIGHT,    1914,   BY  ELLA  LYMAN  CABOT 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S  .   A 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION v 

I.  SOURCES  or  OUTSIDE  HELP  TO  THE  PUB- 
LIC SCHOOLS i 

II.  VOLUNTEER  SERVICE  IN  RELATION  TO 

HEALTH 14 

III.  RECREATION  UNDER  GUIDANCE     ...    23 

IV.  THE  ENJOYMENT  or  ART 43 

V.  TRAINING  FOR  WORK 52 

VI.  TRAINING  FOR  CITIZENSHIP      ....    75 

VII.  TRAINING  FOR  FAMILY  TIES     ....    85 

VIII.  NEW  DEMANDS  ON  THE  SCHOOLS      .    .  104 

IX.  THE  SPHERE  OF  VOLUNTEER  HELP  .    ,  in 

X.  THE  GUIDANCE  OF  VOLUNTEER  HELPERS  121 

OUTLINE 139 


INTRODUCTION 

PUBLIC  schools  should  be  not  only  schools  to 
which  the  children  go  with  swinging  steps  and 
armfuls  of  books,  but  schools  that  the  public  con- 
tinually loves  and  serves.  It  may  serve  through 
criticism  and  desire  for  revision;  it  must  serve 
through  inquiring  love  and  through  hands  offer- 
ing gifts  and  plans.  What  we  love  we  serve,  and 
no  less  truly  what  we  serve  we  love  the  more. 
Service  leaps  to  love  and  love  to  service.  There- 
fore, it  seems  wise  to  gather  together  and  to  clas- 
sify some  of  the  varied  types  of  volunteer  help  to 
our  public  schools,  that  out  of  the  service  already 
given  more  may  grow.  This  study  has  two  aims: 
to  suggest  to  the  amateur  how  to  give  help  and  to 
the  teaching  force  how  to  receive  and  guide  the 
gifts  of  the  public.  Superintendents  and  teachers, 
overburdened  by  the  new  social  demands  made 
upon  the  schools,  may  be  helped  by  knowing  some 
instances  of  typical  and  excellent  work  freely 
given  by  the  public  to  the  schools.  Those  lovers 
of  education  who  want  to  help  the  schools  wisely 
may  gain  by  knowing  where  they  can  turn  for 
v 


INTRODUCTION 

a  survey  of  the  best  fields  and  methods  for  the 
amateur. 

School  men  must  necessarily  be  greater  experts 
in  education  than  amateurs;  but  he  is  expert  who, 
among  other  things,  is  wise  to  catch  from  the  lips 
and  deeds  of  many  men  their  contribution  to  his 
subject.  The  greatest  expert  is  he  who  listens 
best  and  draws  on  the  most  varied  and  efficient 
sources  of  help  in  the  community. 

The  busy  superintendent  must  often  long  to 
post  a  sign  outside  his  office  door:  "Peddlers  and 
meddlers  not  allowed  in  this  building."  But  he 
also  knows  that  the  newer  forms  of  social  educa- 
tion are  galloping  ahead  with  such  speed  that  he 
cannot  walk  or  run  fast  enough  to  keep  up  with 
them.  He  must  welcome  all  considerate  and  well- 
balanced  help  from  the  public  in  regard  to  the 
social  aspects  of  education. 

It  is  difficult  or,  more  strictly,  impossible  to 
define  the  exact  meaning  of  the  social  aspects  of 
education;  for  to  define  means  to  cut  off,  and  as 
all  education  is  ultimately  social  we  cannot  slice 
off  a  part  and  call  it  by  the  name  of  the  whole. 
But  the  choice  of  volunteer  helpers  as  to  the  ways 
in  which  they  hope  to  serve  the  public  schools  is 
definite.  Volunteer  helpers  of  our  public  schools 
usually  turn  aside  from  the  established  subjects 
vi 


INTRODUCTION 

of  the  curriculum  to  concern  themselves  largely 
with  the  health,  recreation,  and  training  for  work 
of  the  school  boys  and  girls,  and  with  their  de- 
velopment into  faithful  members  of  the  family 
and  the  State. 

There  are,  in  addition,  many  instances  of  help 
from  public-spirited  citizens  in  securing  larger 
appropriations  and  specific  acts  of  legislation,  but 
those  efforts  are  in  the  main  means  to  the  ends 
named  above. 

A  valuable  contribution  to  the  public  schools 
has  been  given  by  the  Russell  Sage  Foundation. 
It  has  published  several  important  studies  con- 
cerning phases  of  school  life.  Medical  Inspection 
of  Schools,  by  Luther  H.  Gulick,  is  well  known; 
Among  School  Gardens,  by  M.  Louise  Greene,  is  a 
delightful  tribute  to  the  growing  interest  in  gar- 
dening; Wider  Use  of  the  School  Plant,  by  Clar- 
ence A.  Perry,  contributes  useful  information 
concerning  social  centers  and  vacation  schools. 
The  New  York  Bureau  of  Municipal  Research 
has  encouraged  and  guided  the  wide-reaching 
study  of  service  to  schools  by  Elsa  Denison,  pub- 
lished under  the  title,  Helping  School  Children. 

The  efforts  of  the  public  to  help  the  public 
schools  are  becoming  more  and  more  significant. 
Help  from  outside  has  been  given  to  the  public 
vii 


INTRODUCTION 

schools  for  many  years,  probably  since  the  very 
beginnings  of  education;  but  we  meet  now  not 
only  friends  of  a  special  school  or  teacher,  but 
permanent  organizations  whose  sole  object  it  is 
to  help  schools;  not  only  a  gift  or  a  bit  of  service 
from  an  amateur,  but  definite  continuous  help 
from  experts  in  special  lines,  playground  instruc- 
tors, art  museum  directors,  librarians,  doctors, 
nurses,  and  vocational  counselors. 

I  select  a  single  example.  The  Public  Edu- 
cation Association  of  the  city  of  New  York 
was  granted  its  first  charter  in  1899.  The  per- 
sistent enthusiasm  of  its  members  is  so  great  that 
after  thirteen  years  of  work  it  was  ready  in  June, 
1912,  to  undertake  a  program  involving  an  ex- 
penditure for  the  year  of  $45,000.  The  single 
purpose  of  the  Association  is  to  rouse  and  sustain 
an  intelligent  interest  in  public  education.  For 
these  ends  it  hopes  to  unite  the  best  efforts  of  citi- 
zens with  the  work  of  the  school  authorities,  so 
that  the  Department  of  Education  will  be  inti- 
mate with  and  responsive  to  the  needs  of  the  com- 
munity, and  the  citizens  appreciative  of  the  aims, 
problems,  and  means  of  public  education. 

The  time  has  come  when  school  boards,  super- 
intendents, and  principals  must  deal  definitely 
with  the  help  offered  by  outside  agencies.  The 
viii 


INTRODUCTION 

progressive  superintendent  will  study  the  re- 
sources of  his  town  as  apart  of  his  school  problem. 
Normal-school  pupils  will  be  taught  to  think  of 
the  school  in  which  they  are  to  teach  as  a  center 
with  radiating  lines  reaching  out  toward  libraries, 
museums,  nursing  associations,  boards  of  trade, 
and  women's  clubs. 

The  young  teacher  is  now  often  an  untrained 
social  worker.  She  sees  in  her  pupils  needs  that 
she  does  not  know  how  to  supply,  or  she  is  blind  to 
wants  that  are  staring  from  their  faces.  She  can- 
not work  out  alone  the  great  problems  of  health, 
housing,  physical  need,  lack  of  recreation,  that 
are  silently  and  incessantly  undermining  much 
of  her  best  work.  But  here  all  about  her,  some- 
times blazing  with  a  clear  flame,  sometimes  wait- 
ing for  a  spark  to  light  smouldering  embers,  is 
public  interest  in  the  schools.  Even  the  trying 
smoke  of  grumbling  against  the  schools  signals 
a  possible  flaming  ardor  to  serve. 

Public  interest  in  the  schools  is  valuable  not 
merely  as  a  help  in  relation  to  special  needs.  This 
keen  interest  is  an  arrow  pointing  down  a  long 
road  ahead  toward  a  closer  relation  between  home 
and  school.  Whither  are  the  new  aims  of  educa- 
tion leading?  Again  and  again  it  is  said  that  the 
school  is  taking  over,  one  after  another,  the  re- 
ix 


INTRODUCTION 

sponsibilities  of  the  home.  The  statement  is  true. 
Training  in  the  care  of  health,  household  art, 
vocational  guidance,  moral  standards,  and  even 
the  supplying  of  food  at  the  midday  meal  have 
become  a  function  of  many  schools.  It  is  a  some- 
what startling  outlook.  Is  the  way  out  a  way  of 
retreat?  Shall  we  exclude  rigorously  from  the 
schools  these  newer  and  more  intimate  activities? 
I  believe  such  a  course  to  be  both  unwise  and  im- 
practicable. The  way  out  is  a  way  of  advance, 
not  of  retreat.  The  homes  themselves  must  be 
drawn  into  closer  and  closer  sympathy  with  the 
schools. 

There  was  an  intermediate  time  in  public 
school  history  when  the  school,  by  force  of  the 
necessity  to  train  children  of  foreign-born  parents 
unadapted  to  American  standards,  took  upon 
itself  many  of  the  responsibilities  of  the  home. 
Our  vision  and  the  beginning  of  our  practice  have 
passed  beyond  that  outlook.  What  we  are  facing 
and  working  toward  in  the  last  few  years  is  not 
the  withdrawal  of  the  homes  from  responsibility, 
but  a  permeating  intimacy  of  relationship  be- 
tween home  and  school  that  calls  out  the  best  in 
both.  The  threads  of  this  intimate  alliance  began 
to  twist  together  when  the  school  first  taught  the 
children  things  that  made  the  parents  realize  in 
x 


INTRODUCTION 

concrete  ways  the  value  of  education.  In  the 
early  beginnings  of  manual  work,  parents  came 
delightedly  to  see  what  marvelous  and  useful 
things  the  children  were  actually  making.  The 
first  vacation  schools  in  Boston,  with  their  accent 
on  nature-study,  called  out  wonderful  treasures 
sent  by  the  fathers  to  the  school:  shells,  carv- 
ings, and  minerals,  from  far-off  lands.  And  this 
dawning  interest  increases  with  every  step  that 
the  school  takes  toward  what  the  parents  recog- 
nize as  training  for  daily  living.  Home  and 
school  associations  have  significantly  helped  this 
movement;  the  newer  forms  of  vocational  train- 
ing are  strengthening  it  by  increasing  the  inter- 
est of  boys  in  the  care  of  their  fathers'  farms;  of 
girls  in  work  in  their  mothers'  kitchens.  As  agri- 
cultural work,  domestic  science,  and  industrial 
training  are  developed,  the  homes  of  the  pupils 
open  hospitable  doors. 

On  its  side  the  school  is  feeling  more  and  more 
the  need  of  definite  planning  for  the  future  of  its 
pupils.  That  future  involves  a  readiness  for  home 
conditions  and  life.  The  wisest  of  educators  are 
welcoming  plans  of  school  credit  for  home  work, 
work  in  the  barnyard,  the  dairy,  and  the  kitchen. 
This  work  cannot  be  undertaken  without  willing 
help  from  the  homes,  nor  will  it  be  wholly  suc- 
xi 


INTRODUCTION 

cessful  until  it  has  made  the  home  a  better  place 
to  live  in. 

All  signs  then  point,  I  believe,  toward  a  holy 
alliance  between  the  schools  and  the  interested 
citizens,  who  are,  after  all,  but  fathers  and 
mothers,  sisters  and  brothers  in  spirit.  Volunteer 
helpers  will  have  at  least  three  important  func- 
tions: to  initiate  and  bear  the  burden  of  new 
educational  experiments  before  these  experiments 
are  sufficiently  tested  to  receive  municipal  aid; 
to  give  from  the  reservoir  of  their  peculiar  tal- 
ents expert  help  in  time  of  need;  to  serve  as 
unpaid  advisory  boards  in  special  schools  or  sub- 
jects. Through  these  definite  links  to  the  life  of 
the  public  schools,  volunteer  service  will  be  made 
interesting,  appealing,  and,  if  rightly  guided,  of 
permanent  value. 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  THE 
SCHOOLS 


SOURCES  OF  OUTSIDE  HELP  TO  THE  PUBLIC 
SCHOOLS 

THE  little  red  school-house  has  always  been  a 
bright  romantic  spot  in  American  history.  No 
less  so  is  the  gigantic  red -brick  schoolhouse 
planted  in  crowded  districts  of  each  modern  city. 
Here  is  the  home  of  the  spirit  of  youth,  calling 
with  incessant  appeal  to  the  lover  of  youth.  Club 
women,  settlement  workers,  business  men,  doc- 
tors on  their  rounds,  athletic  college  girls,  moth- 
ers carrying  babies,  see  as  they  walk  through 
city  and  country  streets  the  fascinating  sight  of 
thousands  of  children  of  all  shapes  and  sizes  troop- 
ing daily  to  school  and  whooping  away  from  it. 
And  as  they  look,  the  citizens  become  more  than 
fascinated.  They  want  to  drink  of  the  perpetu- 
ally bubbling  fountain  of  public  education;  they 
begin  to  plan  definite  ways  of  helpfulness. 
Even  the  earlier  sporadic  efforts  to  help  the 
I 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

public  schools  are  symptoms  of  an  extraordina- 
rily significant  movement  that  is  sweeping  across 
the  United  States.  We  have  not  begun  to  appre- 
ciate the  meaning  and  power  of  public  interest  in 
the  schools.  It  is,  in  part,  the  instinct  of  a  demo- 
cratic people  to  keep  its  hand  on  the  guidance 
of  education.  It  is  fully  as  much  the  instinct  of 
parents  and  child-lovers  to  express  in  tangible 
ways  their  perennial  gratitude  for  childhood. 

The  interest  of  an  individual  may  begin  in  the 
desire  to  beautify  a  schoolroom.  She  finds  a  pic- 
ture she  loved  as  a  child  and  offers  it  to  the 
teacher  of  a  primary  grade.  Decoration  of  school 
buildings  is  an  early  and  a  persistent  expression 
of  community  interest.  In  her  book  on  Helping 
School  Children,  Elsa  Denison  reports  that  out 
of  three  hundred  and  fifteen  superintendents  of 
schools  asked  what  citizens  had  done  for  the 
schools,  over  one  half  answer  that  they  have 
helped  in  schoolhouse  decoration.  One 'wonders 
what  proportion  of  these  decorations  were  eye- 
sores rather  than  beauty  spots.  But  ugly  or  ap- 
propriate, they  uttered  the  awakening  love  and 
helpfulness  of  a  public  interested  in  schools. 

Some  form  of  relief  to  poverty  is  also  an  early 
expression  of  help  to  schools.  Long  ago  in  Bos- 
ton, some  kindly  man  must  have  noticed  the  bare 


SOURCES   OF  OUTSIDE  HELP 

or  strangely  clad  feet  of  schoolboys  shuffling 
about  in  ladies'  high-buttoned  boots,  three  but- 
tons off  and  one  protestingly  fastened.  Touched 
with  pity  that  the  feet  must  suffer  while  the  head 
was  filled,  he  left  in  his  will  a  fund  for  shoes  to 
be  given  to  school  children. 

With  education  on  the  technical  side  the  public 
rarely  interferes;  its  most  audible  expression  may 
be  a  rumble  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  teaching 
of  arithmetic  or  penmanship.  But  where  educa- 
tion touches  aspects  of  health,  of  beauty,  of  rec- 
reation, of  civic  and  social  ties,  public  interest 
springs  to  the  fore,  ready,  even  insistent,  with 
questions,  suggestions,  and  offers  of  help.  This 
community  zeal  for  social  and  civic  education, 
its  meaning,  its  scope,  its  future,  its  best  ways 
of  service,  —  these  are  well  worth  analysis. 

Any  such  analysis  within  short  compass  must 
separate  somewhat  arbitrarily  the  social  and  civic 
work  of  the  school  authorities  themselves  from 
that  contributed  by  outsiders.  The  public  school 
itself  is  clearly  the  greatest  of  social  helpers.  Im- 
agine the  schools  of  any  country  closed  for  a  single 
year.  Chaos  would  be  upon  us.  The  help  given 
here  and  there  by  private  associations  and  citi- 
zens to  the  life  of  the  school  is  a  drop  in  the  well- 
filled  bucket  of  public  education.  Yet  for  the 

3 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

sake  of  defining  and  limiting  our  field,  we  must 
take  for  granted  the  accepted  institutions  of  the 
school  and  deal  only  with  those  forms  of  helpful- 
ness to  the  life  of  the  pupils  which  lie,  at  least  in 
part,  outside  the  recognized  domain  of  public 
education.  This  domain,  indeed,  constantly  en- 
larges. The  public  school  is  like  a  great  tract  of 
solid  land  on  the  borders  of  a  sandy  shore.  Its 
boundaries  are  distinct.  Its  territory  is  land,  not 
the  beach,  nor  the  turbulent  sea.  Yet  year  by 
year  seeds  of  public  interest  spring  up  on  the 
sand.  Some  are  blown  away  by  the  winds  of  hu- 
man fickleness.  Some  are  washed  away  by  the 
overwhelming  waves  of  a  cleansing  and  destroy- 
ing competition.  But  some  of  the  seeds  of  public 
interest  in  school  life  have  strong  roots.  Like  the 
blue  lupines  on  the  shore  of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  they 
take  hold  and  year  by  year  add  soil  to  the  beach. 
Gradually  the  solid  land  reaches  forward  to  in- 
clude new  territory.  What  once  was  sandy  beach 
becomes  land.  So  in  educational  life  much  of 
what  a  few  years  ago  was  a  vagrant,  wind-blown 
seed  of  outside  service  to  schools  is  drawn  into  the 
groundwork  of  school  life. 

This  acceptance  into  the  structure  of  the  public 
school  of  what  once  was  a  volunteer  form  of  social 
service  has  been  peculiarly  marked  in  matters  of 
4 


SOURCES  OF  OUTSIDE  HELP 

health.  Ten  years  ago  in  the  United  States  medi- 
cal inspection  of  schools  and  school  nurses  were 
isolated  phenomena.  You  found  them  here  and 
there  in  small  numbers,  supported  and  developed 
by  the  private  initiative  of  doctors  and  social 
workers. 

In  New  York,  for  instance,  twelve  years  ago 
the  Henry  Street  Nurses'  Settlement  placed  one 
of  their  trained  nurses  in  a  public  school  and 
helped  to  organize  the  system  of  school  nursing. 
Now  New  York  employs  over  a  hundred  school 
nurses.  The  need  of  medical  inspection  is  clear 
and  defined.  It  meets  a  public  demand.  The  out- 
sider withdraws  as  the  beach  withdraws  from 
flowering  land.  But  community  interest  does  not 
die;  it  takes  a  new  form,  or  seeks  a  new  field. 

The  social  activities  of  the  schools  themselves 
are  worthy  of  many  volumes.  They  would  in- 
clude to  some  extent  every  study  in  the  school, 
for  every  lesson  has  its  social  bearing.  But  these 
school  activities  are  well  known.  The  meaning 
and  scope  of  the  community's  help  to  public 
schools  is  a  subject  relatively  new  and  largely 
unclassified.  To  that  topic,  therefore,  it  is  well 
to  confine  one's  self.  What  is,  then,  the  center 
of  public  interest  in  schools  and  from  what  part 
of  the  community  does  it  come? 

5 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

Primarily,  no  doubt,  the  interest  of  the  great 
majority  of  our  school  -  helping  public  centers 
round  the  children;  yet  special  groups  of  men 
and  women  are  also  giving  direct  help  to  the 
school  authorities  through  work  to  increase  ap- 
propriations, or  make  more  adequate  laws;  other 
groups  help  teachers  to  secure  pensions,  increased 
salaries,  or  rest-rooms. 

And  from  whom  does  this  abounding  help  come? 
Their  name  is  Legion,  a  loyal  Legion,  and  inevit- 
ably they  include  many  whom  no  questionnaires 
will  ever  reach.  Yet  they  tend  to  form  groups  — 
associations  of  parents,  women's  clubs,  educa- 
tional associations,  municipal  leagues,  chambers 
of  commerce,  librarians,  doctors,  dentists,  minis- 
ters, church  societies,  and  settlement  workers; 
more  and  more  with  the  coming  of  the  voca- 
tional guidance  movement,  a  strong  group  has 
arisen  among  associations  of  business  men. 

From  another  point  of  view  the  assistance  prof- 
fered may  be  divided  into  that  of  amateurs  and 
of  professionals.  Among  amateurs,  women's 
clubs,  parents'  associations,  and  settlement  work- 
ers offer  their  time,  their  careful  study,  and  their 
support  to  plans  for  recreation,  for  sanitation, 
special  classes,  and  civic  teaching.  They  give 
from  their  leisure  in  liberal  service. 
6 


SOURCES  OF  OUTSIDE  HELP 

But  there  is  a  growing  readiness  also  on  the 
part  of  professional  men  and  women  to  help  the 
school  with  unpaid  expert  service.  The  modern 
school  system  is  far  from  being  merely  a  center 
of  learning.  It  is  a  complex  business  organiza- 
tion; its  buildings  can  no  longer  be  put  up  by  the 
village  carpenter;  they  require  an  expert  archi- 
tect; the  health  of  the  pupils  in  our  vast  school 
system  calls  for  the  daily  service  of  doctors  and 
nurses;  vocational  training  leads  directly  to  con- 
sultation with  employers;  and  the  school's  place 
in  the  community  throws  upon  it  the  responsi- 
bility of  evening  recreation  for  young  men  and 
women. 

Our  boards  of  education,  our  superintendents 
and  principals  cannot  be  equipped  as  Jacks  and 
Jills  of  every  trade;  they  would  as  surely  be 
masters  of  none.  They  can  and  will  more  and 
more  ask  and  receive  expert  help  from  the  com- 
munity. 

One  architect,  Mr.  J.  Randolph  Coolidge,  Jr., 
of  Boston,  has  developed  a  plan  for  grouping 
school  buildings  round  a  city  park  with  its  abun- 
dance of  space,  light,  and  air,  and  has  worked  out 
the  financial  cost  of  transporting  children  from 
crowded  districts  as  offset  by  the  sale  of  valuable 
school  property  in  those  districts.  An  able  lawyer 

7 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

in  the  same  city  is  giving  time  and  strength  as 
an  advisory  counselor  of  commercial  and  indus- 
trial schools. 

The  Public  School  Art'  Society  in  Evanston, 
Illinois,  selects  and  buys  all  the  wall-papers, 
plaster  casts,  furniture,  and  rugs  supplied  to  the 
public  schools.  A  mothers'  club  in  Decatur,  Illi- 
nois, working  with  the  Decatur  Review,  secured 
a  landscape  architect  to  lay  out  plans  for  play- 
grounds and  gardening. 

In  North  Carolina,  a  doctor  with  twelve  un- 
paid assistants  inspected  the  schools  of  white  and 
colored  children  in  Asheville  every  week  for  two 
years.  He  taught  teachers  to  examine  their  pu- 
pils; he  gave  illustrated  lectures  to  pupils,  teach- 
ers, and  parents  on  private  and  public  health.1 
This  one  example  must  stand  here  for  many 
instances,  known  and  unknown,  of  the  work  of 
devoted  physicians  in  helping  school  children. 
Much  volunteer  work  is  silent  and  retires  before 
questions;  the  half  is  not  told. 

I  have  shown  that  help  to  the  schools  is  given 
both  by  amateurs  and  by  professionals.  It  is 
given  alike  by  individuals  and  by  organized  asso- 
ciations. The  New  York  Bureau  of  Municipal 

1  See  Elsa  Denison,  Helping  School  Children,  p.  204.  (Har- 
per &  Brothers.) 

8 


SOURCES  OF  OUTSIDE  HELP 

Research  has  been  a  spur  to  many  a  slow-moving 
superintendent  and  a  waving  flag  to  those  who 
want  to  win  the  race.  With  insistent  accent  on 
publicity  and  efficiency,  the  Bureau  pours  out  a 
series  of  pamphlets  on  efficient  citizenship,  com- 
paring by  skillful  statistics  and  diagrams  the 
health,  civic,  and  social  work  of  one  school  super- 
intendent with  another,  pricking  its  way  into  the 
bubble  of  ineffective  reports  and  everywhere 
turning  on  to  our  school  systems  the  searchlight 
of  incessant  inquiry. 

Read  the  list  of  publications  by  the  Russell 
Sage  Foundation :  Laggards  in  our  Schools,  Among 
School  Gardens,  Open- Air  Schools,  Wider  Use  of 
the  School  Plant.  The  titles  ring  rousing  bells. 
Awake  ye  to  the  new  calling  of  education! 

It  is  significant  that  interest  in  helping  schools 
is  not  confined  to  one  sex  rather  than  the  other, 
or  to  one  profession  rather  than  another.  It  is 
even  more  significant  that  the  help  given,  seen  in 
its  broadest  sweep,  is  such  that  it  covers  as  with 
a  garment  the  whole  life  of  children,  both  before 
the  beginning  of  the  compulsory  school  age  and 
after  its  close;  during  play  hours,  evenings,  and 
summer  vacations.  School-lovers  bring  parents  to 
the  schools,  and  visit  them  in  their  homes.  Home 
and  school  associations  are  formed;  cooking, 

9 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

hygiene,  and  discipline  are  discussed  in  a  sociable 
mixture  of  the  affairs  of  body  and  soul.  The 
friendliest  of  school  visitors,  privately  paid  but 
officially  recognized,  bears  the  message  of  an 
anxious  teacher  to  the  home  and  encourages  the 
father  to  support  his  boy  in  home  study.  She 
finds  in  our  crowded  cities  demoralizing  condi- 
tions of  housing  and  persuades  the  family  to  move, 
that  the  child  may  not  turn  pallid  from  lack  of  light 
or  grow  morally  callous  through  lack  of  privacy. 
The  weary  school  principal  has  more  than 
enough  to  think  of  in  his  everyday  routine.  That 
is  partly  why  it  has  been  private  citizens  who 
have  wondered  and  pondered  on  the  time  before 
children  went  to  school  and  initiated  kinder- 
gartens; thought  about  hot  summer  days,  when 
children  like  weeds  run  wild,  and  started  vaca- 
tion schools.  The  watchful  eyes  of  child-lovers 
have  seen  the  lack  of  recreation  after  school  hours. 
Playgrounds  and  social  centers  have  sprung  into 
being.  Their  growth  is  like  that  of  Jack's  bean- 
stalk. One  citizen  who  has  not  forgotten  his  boy- 
hood enunciates  the  epigram,  "The  boy  without 
a  playground  is  father  to  the  man  without  a  job  " ; 
and  the  winged  words  lighting  on  fertile  soil,  plant 
playgrounds  over  the  United  States.  From  long 
brooding  over  the  life  of  the  boys  and  girls  who 
10 


SOURCES  OF  OUTSIDE  HELP 

leave  school  at  fourteen,  the  strong  National  So- 
ciety for  the  Promotion  of  Industrial  Education 
takes  its  rise,  and  presses  through  Congress  bills 
to  give  national  aid  to  vocational  training. 

Thus  everywhere  in  bewildering  variety  volun- 
teers are  helping  the  schools.  To  see  any  unity 
in  the  abundant  out-pouring  of  gifts  we  must 
arrange  them  in  a  definite  grouping. 

The  principal  divisions  of  outside  helpfulness 
to  public  schools  may  be  grouped  thus :  — 

(1)  Health  (including  relief  of  the  needy). 

(2)  Recreation. 

(3)  The  enjoyment  of  art. 

(4)  Training  for  work. 

(5)  Training  for  social  ties:  (a)  citizenship; 
(b)  family  and  friends. 

Under  each  of  these  divisions  a  few  only  of  the 
many  types  of  service  can  be  suggested,  before 
we  go  on  to  give  a  number  of  detailed  illus- 
trations. 

(i)  Health. 

Medical  inspection. 
School  nursing. 
Open-air  rooms. 
Dentistry. 
Public  baths. 
Anti-cigarette  leagues. 
II 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

School  lunches. 

Improvement  of  housing  conditions. 

(2)  Recreation. 

School  playgrounds. 

School  gardens. 

Athletic  contests. 

Folk-dancing. 

Choral  classes. 

School  social  centers. 

Vacation  schools. 

Story-telling  and  moving  pictures. 

(3)  Art. 

School  decoration. 

Beautifying  the  school  grounds. 

Art  Museum  classes. 

Music  classes. 

Drama. 

School  architecture. 

School  pageants. 

Exhibitions  of  paintings. 

(4)  Training  for  work. 

Vocational  guidance. 
Industrial  schools. 
Classes  in  salesmanship. 
Household  art. 
Placement  bureaus. 

Pamphlets  and  lectures  on  vocational  oppor- 
tunities. 

12 


SOURCES  OF  OUTSIDE  HELP 

(5)  Training  for  social  ties, 
(a)  Citizenship:  — 

School  cities. 

Exhibits  of  civic  conditions. 

City  history  clubs. 

Civil  service  reform  teaching. 

School  peace  leagues. 

Boy  scouts. 
(6)  Family  and  friendship:  — 

Ethical  classes. 

Educational  moving  pictures. 

Home-making  classes. 

Social  centers. 

Sex  education. 

The  choice  of  books. 


II 

VOLUNTEER  SERVICE  IN  RELATION  TO 
HEALTH 

SCHOOL  itself  has  always  supplied  conditions  for 
learning,  but  these  conditions  have  often  been 
physically  hurtful.  Children  have  been  crowded 
together  with  too  little  air,  light,  humidity.  Their 
eyes  have  been  strained  by  over-use  and  their 
backs  by  cramped  attitudes;  a  contagious  dis- 
ease caught  by  one  has  spread  almost  inevitably 
through  the  school. 

Mr.  William  H.  Allen,  director  of  the  Bureau 
of  Municipal  Research  in  New  York,  has  clev- 
erly expressed  this  danger  of  contagion  through 
school  conditions:  — 

Mary  had  a  little  cold, 

It  started  in  her  head ; 
And  everywhere  that  Mary  went 

That  cold  was  sure  to  spread. 

She  took  it  into  school  one  day; 

There  was  n't  any  rule; 
It  made  the  children  cough  and  sneeze 

To  have  that  cold  in  school. 


VOLUNTEER  SERVICE  AND  HEALTH 

The  teacher  tried  to  drive  it  out; 

She  tried  hard,  but  —  kerchoo! 
It  did  n't  do  a  bit  of  good, 

'Cause  teacher  caught  it  too.1 

Medical  inspection,  school  nursing,  and  den- 
tistry have  come  into  the  schools  to  stay,  and 
they  have  come  largely  through  private  initiative. 
In  most  cases  the  work  has  not  long  remained 
private.  Realizing  that  health  goes  with  success 
in  education,  the  school  boards  themselves  have 
responded  quickly  and  generously  to  the  need  for 
medical  inspection,  school  nurses,  open-air  rooms, 
and  instruction  in  hygiene.  Yet  still  a  large  sup- 
plementary field  is  open  for  private  helpfulness. 

In  New  York  City,  in  1910,  the  Committee  on 
Prevention  of  Tuberculosis  of  the  Charity  Organ- 
ization Society  prepared  and  circulated  through 
the  public  schools  an  essay  on  "  What  you  should 
know  about  Tuberculosis."  In  Brooklyn,  New 
York,  a  similar  committee  gives  in  day  and  even- 
ing schools  one  hundred  illustrated  lectures  a 
year  on  tuberculosis.  In  cooperation  with  the  de- 
partments of  health  and  of  education,  it  main- 
tains on  a  ferryboat  in  the  harbor  an  original  and 
interesting  class  with  two  teachers.  There  are 
about  forty  tuberculous  children  in  this  class. 
1  William  H.  Allen,  Alice  in  Health  Land. 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

Dental  clinics  are  still  largely  the  gift  of  gener- 
ous societies  and  dentists.  But  more  and  more 
the  public  schools  and  their  dauntless  teachers 
are  shouldering  the  new  and  exhilarating  tasks 
laid  upon  them.  Like  Atlas  they  stand  ready  to 
carry  the  world.  In  Brookline,  Massachusetts,  a 
spirited  principal  has  so  strongly  urged  and  car- 
ried out  the  cleaning  of  the  teeth  of  her  school 
children  that  a  special  toothbrush  is  named  in 
honor  of  her  school.  Many  are  the  paths  to  fame ! 

For  years  to  come,  private  associations  will 
continue  to  take  charge  of  lifting  to  its  high- 
est plane  the  health  of  children  during  the  long 
summer  vacation.  Thus  they  will  help  the  next 
year's  schooling  of  delicate  children. 

In  Boston  for  the  last  three  years  a  group  of 
250  children,  between  the  ages  of  seven  and 
twelve,  carefully  chosen  as  delicate  and  needing 
refreshment,  have  been  taken  for  eight  weeks 
during  July  and  August  to  an  island  in  the  har- 
bor. The  average  attendance  in  1912  was  190. 
The  children  are  selected  by  school  nurses  and  by 
social  workers  and  the  work  is  supervised  by  Dr. 
Harrington,  director  of  hygiene  of  the  Boston  pub- 
lic schools,  but  paid  for  and  managed  by  a  commit- 
tee of  the  Women's  Municipal  League.  Special 
cars  take  the  children  to  the  bridge  leading  to  the 
16 


VOLUNTEER  SERVICE  AND  HEALTH 

island  school.  A  school  nurse  is  engaged  to  take 
records  of  their  improvement  and  teach  clean- 
liness. The  children  are  given  nourishing  food, 
they  play  games,  learn  simple  folk-dances,  hear 
delightful  story-telling,  and  during  the  afternoon 
are  taught  to  take  an  hour's  nap,  it  being  often 
pathetically  evident  that  these  little  people  are 
starved  for  sleep. 

Another  form  of  work  for  the  health  and  wel- 
fare of  school  children,  and  for  the  improvement 
of  their  housing  conditions,  is  accomplished  by  the 
school  visitor,  or,  as  she  is  called  in  New  York, 
the  "  Visiting  Teacher."  This  work  is  still  sup- 
ported with  a  few  exceptions  by  private  societies. 
Some  examples  will  show  how  the  school  visitor 
affects  housing  conditions.  One  of  the  school 
visitors  works  in  a  very  poor  quarter  of  Boston, 
inhabited  largely  by  Italians  and  Russian  Jews. 
The  visitor  calls  each  day  at  the  public  school, 
and  is  given  a  number  of  cards  bearing  the  names 
and  addresses  of  children  about  whom  the  teacher 
is  troubled,  together  with  a  short  statement  of 
the  difficulty.  Armed  with  this  card  the  visitor 
goes  to  the  house  of  the  parents  and  talks  the 
matter  over  carefully  with  the  mother,  often 
returning  in  the  evening  to  see  the  father. 

Last  year  one  boy  of  twelve  years  was  reported 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

as  doing  poorly  in  his  school  work,  and  as  staying 
out  late  at  night.  He  had  reached  only  the  fourth 
grade  and  seemed  stolid,  indifferent,  and  taci- 
turn. Miss  B.  visited  the  house  and  found  a  four- 
room  tenement  in  which  not  only  the  family,  but 
in  addition  sixteen  boarders  apparently  slept. 
This  overcrowding  was  clearly  illegal,  and  at 
Miss  B.'s  request  the  city  board  of  health  inter- 
fered and  the  boarders  left.  The  boy,  relieved  of 
the  strain  of  uncomfortable  home  conditions,  be- 
came happy  and  regular  in  his  school  work. 

Louis,  whose  teacher  reported  him  for  unclean- 
liness,  was  found  living  alone  with  his  father  in 
the  dressing-room  of  a  Turkish  bath  establish- 
ment. His  father  drank,  his  mother  was  dead, 
and  this  was  his  only  home.  After  school  and 
even  through  the  evening  Louis  worked  peddling 
fruit.  He  earned  about  two  dollars  a  week,  but 
this  was  not  his  to  own.  He  had  to  give  it  to  his 
father.  The  school  visitor  protested  against  the 
dirty  room,  and  the  father  agreed  to  move.  He 
did,  indeed,  but  only  to  a  worse  place,  a  cold, 
dark  basement  room  four  by  eight  feet,  in  the  rear 
of  a  tailor  shop.  There  was  no  furniture  in  the 
room  except  one  table,  a  small  oil  stove,  and  a 
heap  of  dirty  clothes  for  a  bed. 

Undaunted  by  her  former  failure,  the  school 
18 


VOLUNTEER  SERVICE  AND  HEALTH 

visitor  again  expostulated,  pleaded,  and  threat- 
ened with  all  the  resources  at  her  command.  She 
came,  she  saw,  she  conquered.  The  father  was 
persuaded  to  move,  not  only  to  a  clean  house,  but 
to  one  where  a  motherly  woman  took  charge  of 
Louis.  His  personal  appearance  and  his  standing 
in  school  have  steadily  improved  since  this  time. 

In  another  and  vital  way  the  school  visitor 
cooperates  with  school  nurse  and  doctor  for  the 
moral  and  physical  health  of  the  school  commun- 
ity. In  every  large  school  there  are  cases  of  feeble- 
mindedness. They  bring  to  the  community  a 
menace  that  we  are  only  beginning  to  appreciate. 
They  tax  with  severe  and  unnecessary  strain  the 
overburdened  teacher.  I  knew  of  a  girl  so  nearly 
idiotic  that  any  effort  to  teach  her  was  impossible ; 
her  conduct  in  school  demoralized  the  class.  For 
months  that  girl  sat  in  the  little  office  of  the 
school  principal.  It  was  a  burden  to  the  princi- 
pal to  have  her  there,  but  she  said,  with  the  un- 
conscious valor  of  a  true  public  servant,  "I  could 
not  turn  her  out  in  the  street  nor  leave  her  with 
the  other  children. " 

The  girl  was  saucy,  flirtatious,  uncontrolled. 
Outside  of  school  hours  she  gathered  round  her 
and  led  in  foolish  ways  a  bevy  of  boys  and  girls. 
Appealing  to  an  alienist,  the  school  visitor  with 

19 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

the  help  of  the  nurse  established  the  girl's  feeble- 
mindedness, visited  her  parents,  persuaded  them 
that  for  the  girl's  best  good  she  should  be  sent 
to  the  peace  and  special  care  of  a  school  for  the 
feeble-minded. 

The  conception  of  the  school  visitor  originated 
in  the  councils  of  wise  and  interested  private  as- 
sociations for  education  and  social  service.  It  has 
in  several  cities  already  been  accepted  as  a  help 
which  the  school  principal  would  relinquish  most 
reluctantly.  From  Mr.  John  McGrath,  principal 
of  the  Eliot  School  in  the  crowded  North  End  of 
Boston,  come  these  words  of  recognition : "  In  con- 
gested districts  the  home  and  school  visitor  is  of 
service  to  schools,  pupils,  and  parents.  The  work 
is  no  less  important  than  that  of  the  truant  offi- 
cer, school  physician,  and  school  nurse.  There 
is  a  distinct  field  for  each  of  these  workers  and 
plenty  of  work  for  each  to  do.  .  .  .  I  know  of  no 
money  expended  for  school  purposes  which  brings 
larger  returns  than  the  salary  paid  to  the  home 
and  school  visitor."  l 

The  New  York  Public  Education  Association 
gives  the  following  list  of  typical  cases  helped  by 
one  home  and  school  visitor:  — 

1  Home  and  School  Association  of  Boston,  November,  1910 
Report. 

2O 


VOLUNTEER  SERVICE  AND  HEALTH 


Complaints  of  Children  by  School 
or  Others 

(i)  Slept  in  school,. dull  and  indif- 
ferent. 


Success/til  Outcome  through  Efforts 
of  Visitor 

Night  peddling  stopped  by  schol- 
arship; works  well  in  school; 
ambition  roused  for  technical 
education. 

Boy  watched  and  placed  in  car- 
pentry class.  Now  boasts  of  his 
success,  and  takes  all  he  makes 
in  shop  to  school  teacher. 

Mother  angered  at  suggestions, 
but  followed  them  with  gain  to 
child. 

Value  of  school  training  explained; 
child  responded. 

Many  weeks  of  persuasion  and 
suggestion;  changed  diet,  whole 
standard  of  living,  and  moved 
to  better  quarters. 

Sunday-School,  sewing-class,  etc.; 
excellent  work  at  school;  stays 
home  off  streets. 

Other  amusements  provided  for 
the  group;  class  formed  at  a 
settlement  for  shop-work. 

Father  and  mother  treated  boy 
differently  after  visitor  showed 
interest. 

Encouragement  by  visitor  and 
teachers,  continual  supervision 
at  home  and  school;  record  at 
school  excellent,  and  girl  placed 
in  Clara  de  Hirsch  Home  at  her 
own  request. 

It  has  seemed  important  to  give  in  detail  the 
work  of  school  visitors  because  they  represent 

21 


(2)  Teacher's  verdict:  worst  boy 
in  school;  boy  boasted  of  this. 


(3)  Poorly  nourished;  wrong  food. 

(4)  Impertinent,  idle,  etc. 

(5)  Disorderly. 


(6)  Incorrigible    at    home    and 
school;  poor  work  in  class. 


(7)  Harboring  truants  in  den  in 
the  child's  yard. 


(8)  Cruel    treatment    at    home 
made  boy  sick  at  school. 


(9)  Unmanageable  at  home  and 
school:  immoral. 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

one  of  the  new  and  important  contributions  of 
private  associations  to  the  health  and  welfare 
of  the  schools. 

The  efficient  school  visitor  is  not  only  a  present 
help  in  trouble;  she  suggests  and  illustrates  by 
the  quality  of  her  work  a  high  standard  for  public 
school  attendance  officers.  School  superintend- 
ents and  principals,  watching  her  work,  see  that 
punctuality,  attendance,  cleanliness,  and  ambition 
rise  at  her  coming.  They  will  come  to  see  that 
they  cannot  do  without  work  of  this  character. 
They  will  gain,  by  the  force  of  vivid  example,  a 
new  conception  of  the  right  kind  of  attendance 
officer  —  no  longer  a  strong-armed,  though  kind- 
hearted,  source  of  terror  to  truants,  but  an  under- 
standing friend  of  school  children,  looking  not 
merely  to  their  actual  absence  but  to  the  causes 
for  that  absence,  and  as  far  as  possible  removing 
them.  These  attendance  officers  will  be  more 
highly  paid  because  more  highly  trained;  they 
will  be  given  smaller  districts,  and  they  will  work 
for  good  home  conditions,  sufficient  food,  and 
recreation;  segregation  of  the  feeble-minded; 
chances  for  home  study  as  well  as  for  attendance 
and  punctuality. 


HI 

RECREATION  UNDER  GUIDANCE 

THE  wave  of  the  spirit  of  play  has  swept  over 
America  and  inundated  the  public  schools. 
Drawing  into  its  current  the  contributory  streams 
of  playgrounds,  athletic  games,  gardening,  drama, 
moving-picture  shows,  pageants,  choral  class  and 
folk-dancing,  it  floods  the  whole  life  of  the  school 
child  besides  lapping  round  the  feet  of  his  parents 
and  enticing  them  also  to  wade  in  recreation.  As 
in  the  case  of  efforts  to  improve  health,  the  rec- 
reation movement  has  been  in  many  instances 
Initiated  by  private  associations,  though  often 
swiftly  adopted  by  the  public  school  itself.  Best 
of  all,  private  and  public  efforts  have  grown 
strong  side  by  side,  and  teachers  and  parents  meet 
in  the  National  Playground  Association.  Gar- 
dens and  social  centers  well  illustrate  the  rapid 
growth  of  interest  in  recreation  among  school- 
surroundings. 

The  kindergarten  long  ago  recognized  the  truth 
that  gardens  and  children  belong  together.  The 
kindergarten  has  an  honorable  length  of  life,  but 
gardens  for  school  children  began  in  the  United 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

States  no  longer  ago  than  1891,  and  began,  as 
was  fitting  and  natural,  through  the  initiative  of 
those  whose  central  interest  was  in  flowers.  The 
Massachusetts  Horticultural  Society  in  1890  sent 
Mr.  Henry  L.  Clapp,  master  of  the  George  Put- 
nam School  in  Roxbury,  to  study  school  gardens 
abroad.  When  he  came  home  he  started  for  his 
school  children  a  wild-flower  garden  which  still 
yearly  blossoms  with  nearly  one  hundred  and 
fifty  native  plants.  The  wise  lovers  of  flowers 
know  that  the  children  who  have  served  and  pro- 
tected the  lives  of  wild  flowers  will  not  pluck 
them  by  the  roots,  for  service  brings  understand- 
ing and  love. 

In  Cleveland,  Ohio,  the  seeds  of  education  were 
sown  broadcast  with  the  seeds  of  flowers.  The 
Cleveland  Home  Gardening  Association  in  1900 
distributed  48,868  packages  of  seeds  and  the  next 
year  started  an  experimental  garden  in  the  center 
of  the  city.  It  was  not  long  before  the  board  of 
education  saw  the  gain  to  the  schools  of  gar- 
dening and  took  the  unusual  step  of  appointing 
a  woman  curator  of  school  gardens  with  an  as- 
sistant teacher  and  three  workmen  under  her.1 
School  gardening  is  not  compulsory.  Would  any 

1  M.  Louise  Greene,  Among  School  Gardens,  pp.  7  and  23. 
Charities  Publication  Co.,  New  York. 

24 


RECREATION  UNDER  GUIDANCE 

one,  who  watches  the  delight  of  children  in  dig- 
ging, suggest  that  it  should  be?  Flower  shows  are 
held  in  September  and  October,  and  the  curator 
gives  informal  lessons.  She  has  also  worked  out 
a  plan  of  correlation  between  the  garden  work  and 
arithmetic,  geography,  drawing,  and  manual 
training.  The  schools  and  the  gardening  asso- 
ciation work  together  to  interest  the  children  in 
home  gardens  and  in  the  decoration  of  school 
grounds. 

Philadelphia  has  the  distinction  of  exceptional 
recognition  by  the  board  of  education  of  the 
value  of  school  gardens.  Gardening  work  is  a 
part  of  the  school  system  and  the  gardens  are 
kept  growing  through  the  entire  summer.  The 
board  pays  for  a  special  supervisor  of  gardens. 
In  Pittsburg,  the  Playground  Association  is 
given  an  annual  appropriation  from  the  city  to 
carry  on  playgrounds,  recreation  centers,  and 
school  gardening.  Experienced  teachers  take  the 
children  on  long,  joyous  tramps  to  secure  the  un- 
costly treasures  of  ferns,  flowers,  and  cocoons. 

In  Philadelphia  and  in  Washington  every  class 
from  the  kindergarten  to  the  normal  school  has  a 
taste  and  a  touch  of  gardening.1  With  the  gar- 
den comes  definite  relation  to  other  lessons :  Arith- 
1  M.  Louise  Greene,  Among  School  Gardens,  p.  239. 

25 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

metic  brightens  into  measurement  of  one's  own 
property;  agriculture  and  chemistry  are  touched 
on  in  ploughing  and  fertilizing;  it  is  much  more 
fun  to  cook  your  own  potatoes  than  the  mere  po- 
tatoes from  a  butcher's  cart;  literature  has  more 
meaning  if  it  is  about  your  English  daisy;  draw- 
ing is  most  careful  when  it  is  the  design  of  your 
largest  tomato;  and  manual  training  becomes  the 
chance  to  make  stakes,  boxes,  and  labels.  Grad- 
ually, as  the  children  grow  older,  business  arith- 
metic, bank  deposits,  columns  of  profit  and  loss 
creep  in,  and  recreation  gently  takes  the  hand  of 
work  in  full  partnership. 

Many  herbs  grow  in  gardens  beside  flowers. 
One  enthusiastic  volunteer  helper  of  the  schools 
writes:  "The  garden  was  used  to  show  how  will- 
ing and  anxious  children  are  to  work,  and  to  teach 
them  in  their  work  some  necessary  civic  virtues; 
private  care  of  public  property,  economy,  hon- 
esty, application,  concentration,  self  -  govern- 
ment, civic  pride,  justice,  the  dignity  of  labor, 
and  the  love  of  nature."  l  Perhaps  not  all  these 
virtues  flower  in  the  school  garden;  not  all  bear 
seed;  but  all  children  want  to  be  care-takers  as 
well  as  care-receivers,  and  an  interest  that  leads 

1  Mrs.  Henry  Parsons:  Report  of  First  Children's  School 
Farm  in  New  York  City,  1902-04. 

26 


RECREATION   UNDER  GUIDANCE 

to  steady  and  loving  care  through  heat  and  cold, 
rain  and  sun,  is  the  best  of  teachers.  "  There 's  an 
insect  eating  one  of  the  children's  plants.  I  must 
remove  it,"  said  the  teacher;  but  her  act  was  in- 
terrupted by  the  supervisor.  "No,  no!  leave  it 
there  that  the  child  who  cares  for  the  plot  may 
notice  it.  That  insect  is  the  real  teacher  of  the 
class." 

In  the  United  States  all  good  things  tend  to 
join  hands  and  become  national  movements.  We 
have  the  American  School  Hygiene  Association, 
the  Playground  and  Recreation  Association  of 
America,  the  National  Society  for  the  Promotion 
of  Industrial  Education.  Gardening  associations 
are  becoming  national  in  character.  Three  of 
these,  the  National  Plant,  Flower  and  Fruit 
Guild,  the  International  School  Farm  League, 
and  the  Gardening  Association  of  America,  stand 
ready  to  help  school  work.  Normal  schools  from 
the  pioneer,  little  Hyannis  on  Cape  Cod,  west- 
ward all  over  the  nation  are  preparing  teachers 
of  gardening.  Hardly  a  village  can  exist  without 
some  ardent  lover  of  flowers  ready  to  give  land, 
seeds,  cuttings,  or  instruction.  In  school  garden- 
ing, then,  there  is  ian  exceptionally  good  chance 
for  the  schools  and  the  amateurs  to  unite  over 
the  lovely  subjects  of  flowers  and  children. 
27 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

Social  Centers 

The  name  of  Jane  Addams's  book,  The  Spirit 
of  Youth  and  the  City  Streets,  might  stand  as  the 
underlying  motive  for  the  use  of  our  public-school 
buildings  as  social  centers.  Here  is  youth,  beau- 
tiful and  beauty-loving,  restless  and  appealing, 
and  here,  facing  youth,  is  the  dangerous,  dissi- 
pating glamour  of  the  city  streets.  Here,  too,  in 
every  section  of  every  city  stand  the  great  dark 
school  buildings  looking  out  silently  on  the  doings 
of  the  night.  It  cannot  wisely  be  borne.  One  by 
one  the  schools  are  opening  hospitable  doors, 
lighted  halls,  and  guided  recreation  to  youth; 
quelling  the  power  of  the  street  by  a  sounder 
attraction. 

At  a  civic  exhibit  in  1911  the  Educational  De- 
partment of  the  Women's  Municipal  League  of 
Boston,  of  which  I  was  chairman,  wanted  to  rep- 
resent graphically  the  relation  of  closed  school- 
houses  to  the  dangers  of  city  life  in  the  evening. 
I  made  a  model  two  and  a  half  feet  wide,  one  side 
of  which  represented  a  school  hall  full  of  eager  boys 
engaged  in  athletics  and  the  other  a  saloon  with 
drinkers  at  the  bar.  A  board  representing  two 
doors  was  so  hung  at  right  angles  to  the  surface  of 
the  saloon  and  school  that  closing  the  door  of  the 
28 


RECREATION  UNDER  GUIDANCE 

school  opened  the  door  of  the  saloon,  and  opening 
the  door  of  the  schoolhouse  closed  the  door  of  the 
saloon.  Below  was  printed  the  verse:  — 

Trade  training  means  wages; 

Good  sport  is  a  boon: 
When  you  open  the  schoolhouse, 

You  close  the  saloon. 

The  thousands  of  visitors  to  this  civic  exhibit, 
tempted  as  all  human  beings  are  by  the  primitive 
instinct  to  handle  what  they  see,  were  invited  to 
keep  the  door  of  the  model  wooden  schoolhouse 
open  and  thereby  they  inevitably  closed  that  of 
the  saloon. 

The  far-famed  social  centers  of  Rochester,  New 
York,  with  their  lively  and  checkered  history, 
were  begun  through  the  interest  of  an  unusual 
combination  of  private  associations.1  The  Central 
Trades  and  Labor  Council,  the  Children's  Play- 
ground League,  the  College  Women's  Club,  the 
Daughters  of  the  American  Revolution,  the 
Humane  Society,  the  Labor  Lyceum,  the  Local 
Council  of  Women,  the  Officers'  Association  of 
Mothers'  Clubs,  the  Political  Equality  Club,  the 
Social  Settlement  Association,  the  Women's  Edu- 
cational and  Industrial  Union  set  the  excellent 

1  See  Clarence  A.  Perry,  Wider  Use  of  the  School  Plant, 
p.  270. 

29 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

precedent  of  uniting  as  a  school-extension  com- 
mittee. Why  should  not  every  city  follow  this 
admirable  example,  forgetting  those  dissensions 
that  are  behind  and  pressing  forward  to  a  com- 
mon good?  Together  these  eleven  organizations 
worked  toward  the  fulfillment  of  the  director's 
aim  to  develop,  through  the  use  of  public-school 
buildings,  neighborliness,  community  interest,  and 
a  true  democracy. 

In  the  winter  of  1906  and  1907,  the  Social  Eco- 
nomics Club,  a  small  women's  club  of  Milwaukee, 
passed  a  resolution  to  petition  the  common  coun- 
cil of  the  city  to  set  aside  $25,000  for  a  public  bet- 
terment fund,  to  be  used  for  recreation  centers  in 
the  public  schools  and  for  converting  the  school 
grounds  into  public  playgrounds.  This  resolution, 
which  was  presented  to  the  public  school  board 
and  to  the  Women's  Federated  Clubs  of  the  Mil- 
waukee district,  at  once  gained  the  strong  sym- 
pathy and  support  of  each. 

With  this  important  backing,  the  resolution 
when  brought  before  the  common  council  re- 
ceived favorable  consideration,  but  it  was  then 
discovered  that  to  utilize  the  public  school  build- 
ings and  grounds,  as  proposed,  the  city  charter 
would  have  to  be  amended.  In  the  mean  time, 
as  the  proposition  became  understood,  it  grew  in 
30 


RECREATION  UNDER  GUIDANCE 

favor  and  won  for  itself  friends  in  official  and 
other  influential  quarters.  With  such  encourage- 
ment, the  women  who  had  the  movement  in 
charge  carried  the  matter  to  the  Legislature, 
and  at  the  session  of  1907  the  city  charter  was 
amended  and  a  law  passed  to  allow  the  use  of 
the  buildings  and  grounds  of  the  public  schools 
as  petitioned. 

The  next  important  step  toward  success  was  to 
secure  necessary  funds  for  this  work.  The  imme- 
diate small  and  initiative  expenses  were  met  by 
private  subscriptions  and  contributions  from  the 
treasuries  of  interested  women's  clubs.  At  this 
crucial  point  the  public  school  board  of  Milwau- 
kee placed  itself  in  line  with  the  most  progressive 
cities  in  the  country.  It  appropriated  $2500  to  be 
used  in  the  sixth  district  school  for  social  center 
work  for  one  year.  This  generous  act  paved  the 
way  for  immediate  detailed  plans  and  the  new 
experiment  was  carried  out.1 

In  Philadelphia  a  number  of  school  buildings 
are  granted  for  use  as  social  centers  by  the  school 
board  who  supply  light,  heat,  and  janitors.  The 
centers  are  maintained  by  private  organizations. 
The  tie  to  the  school  authorities  is  kept  strong 
by  the  fact  that  all  the  paid  assistants  must  be 
1  Charities  and  the  Commons,  December  19,  1908. 

31 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

approved  by  the  superintendent  of  schools  as 
well  as  by  a  special  committee  of  the  Home  and 
School  League.  The  workers  are  largely  volun- 
teers. 

Athletics 

In  athletics  the  New  York  Public  Schools  Ath- 
letic League,  with  its  special  branch  for  girls,  has 
shown  the  closest  cooperation  with  the  school 
authorities.  The  school  superintendent  is  a  mem- 
ber, the  district  teachers  always  take  part,  and  the 
financial  support  is  guaranteed  largely  by  busi- 
ness men  and  other  members,  and  in  the  case  of 
girls  by  public-spirited  women.  In  1910  an  an- 
nual expenditure  of  $10,000  was  made  possible 
through  private  subscriptions. 

The  girls'  branch  has  evolved  the  wise  plan 
of  teaching  dancing  and  athletics  to  public  school 
teachers  free  of  expense  on  the  condition  that  they 
give  lessons  to  athletic  clubs  in  their  own  schools. 
The  relation  of  good  standing  in  school  to  sport  is 
made  by  insisting  that  every  boy  or  girl  who  takes 
part  in  a  competition  must  have  received  as  high 
as  B  in  studies.  In  relation  to  conduct  a  striking 
sex  distinction  is  made.  A  girl  must  receive  A 
for  conduct,  a  boy  but  B  before  being  allowed  to 
compete  in  games. 

32 


RECREATION  UNDER  GUIDANCE 

Streams  of  influence  from  the  New  York  exper- 
iment have  flowed  far  west  to  the  Pacific  Coast. 
The  Public  School  Athletic  League  of  Seattle  was 
begun  by  the  zeal  of  the  director  of  the  Y.M.C.A. 
who  had  heard  of  the  New  York  plan.  Through- 
out the  country  there  are  many  instances  of  vol- 
unteer help  to  school  athletics.  In  Baltimore  the 
arrangement  is  wholly  outside  the  school  board; 
in  Tacoma,  Washington,  business  men  have  given 
a  large  part  of  the  money  necessary  to  build  an 
$80,000  stadium.1 

It  is  noticeable  also  that  many  important 
pieces  of  investigation  about  public  school  athlet- 
ics have  been  made  by  those  outside  the  schools. 
Athletics  in  the  Public  Schools,  by  Lee  F.  Hanmer, 
of  the  Playground  Extension  Committee,  is  pub- 
lished by  the  Russell  Sage  Foundation.  The 
Advisability  of  Inter-High-School  Contests,  by  Earl 
Cline  is  published  by  the  American  Physical 
Education  Association. 

Vacation  Schools  and  Playgrounds 

The  sympathetic  eyes  of  social  workers  have 
for  many  years  watched  children  drifting  about 
aimlessly  or  playing  illegal  games  in  hot,  un- 
shaded city  streets  during  July  and  August. 

1  Clarence  A.  Perry,  Wider  Use  of  the  School  Plant,  p.  327. 

33 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

Vacation  schools,  voluntary  and  popular,  have 
been  the  outcome  of  observant  eyes  and  trained 
capacity.  The  first  vacation  school  was  started 
as  far  back  as  1866  under  the  auspices  of  the  First 
Church  of  Boston;  swiftly,  in  1870,  Providence, 
Rhode  Island,  through  a  volunteer  committee, 
took  up  the  work.  The  settlements  had  already 
helped  through  their  own  summer  classes  and 
were  eager  to  do  more;  charity  organizations, 
civic  leagues,  women's  clubs,  and  educational  as- 
sociations felt  the  need  to  set  to  work.  The  larg- 
est private  undertaking  may  well  be  that  of  the 
Chicago  Permanent  Vacation  School  Committee 
of  Women's  Clubs,  which  had  in  charge  the  ex- 
penditure of  $23,217.59  in  the  support  of  sixteen 
vacation  schools.  Of  this  amount  $15,000  was 
given  by  the  Chicago  Board  of  Education.1  In 
almost  all  cases  the  boards  of  education  have 
freely  given  the  use  of  school  buildings  and  their 
equipment,  and  in  many  instances,  asinNew  York, 
Chicago,  Cleveland,  Milwaukee,  and  St.  Paul, 
vacation  schools  have  been  subsequently  adopted 
by  the  school  board  as  part  of  its  regular  work. 
In  Pittsburg  the  board  of  education  contributes 
largely  to  the  support  of  playgrounds  and  vaca- 
tion schools,  but  they  are  still  (1913)  under  the 
1  Clarence  A.  Perry,  Wider  Use  of  the  School  Plant,  p.  135. 

34 


RECREATION  UNDER  GUIDANCE 

direction  of  the  Pittsburg  Playground  Associa- 
tion. It  is  significant  to  find  the  vacation  schools 
used  in  two  or  more  cities  as  an  effective  instru- 
ment to  change  the  roughness  of  a  gang  into  an 
energetic  interest.  "  The  gang  has  been  tamed," 
writes  the  president  of  the  Pittsburg  Playground 
Association.  "The  West  End  gang,  whose  ideals 
had  been  confined  to  baseball  and  pugilism,  be- 
came enthusiastic  carpenters.  Their  devotion  to 
the  fine  clean  young  fellow  who  was  their  instruc- 
tor was  pathetic.  They  followed  him  around.  In 
order  to  cure  the  sneak-thieving,  he  would  leave 
all  the  material  out  on  the  ball-field  and  go  away 
without  making  any  one  boy  responsible  for  it. 
The  next  morning  every  bat  and  ball  and  glove 
would  be  returned." 

In  Cleveland  one  vacation  school  was  composed 
entirely  of  155  boys  who  had  been  assigned  to  the 
detention  home  by  the  judge  of  the  juvenile  court. 
They  were  given  gardening,  drawing,  weaving, 
paper-cutting,  clay  modeling,  and  raffia  work.1 

Experiment  in  the  best  methods  of  guided  rec- 
reation is  one  important  function  for  private  soci- 
eties who  are  helping  school  children.  Many  vaca- 
tion schools  have  degenerated,  because  neither  the 

1  Clarence  A.  Perry,  Wider  Use  of  the  School  Plant,  pp.  139, 
141. 

35 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

work  nor  the  attendance  was  kept  up  to  the  mark. 
It  is,  therefore,  worth  while  to  show  by  a  single 
example  the  value  of  a  private  experiment  in  re- 
lation to  attendance  and  curriculum  for  vacation 
schools. 

The  Massachusetts  Civic  League  experimented 
carefully  for  three  years  to  work  out  (i)  the  cause 
and  cure  of  irregular  attendance;  (2)  the  most 
appealing  and  the  most  valuable  summer  curric- 
ulum; (3)  the  relation  to  one  another  of  different 
agencies  for  recreation. 

Irregular  and  irresponsible  attendance  is  a 
danger  in  all  non-compulsory  summer  work.  The 
Massachusetts  Civic  League  minimized  this  by 
great  care  in  keeping  the  parents  informed  of  and 
interested  in  the  school.  The  form  of  invitation 
to  join  the  vacation  school  read :  — 

A  Vacation  School  will  be  opened  for  six  weeks 
from  July  loth  to  August  i8th  in  the  Dwight  and 
Hyde  Schools.  Instruction  will  be  given  for  three 
hours  a  day  in  carpentry,  drawing,  natural  science, 
cooking,  and  singing.  Only  a  limited  number  of  pu- 
pils can  be  accommodated.  If  you  would  like  your 
child  to  have  this  instruction,  please  meet  the  Vaca- 
tion School  Committee  at  the  Hyde  School  on  June 
29th  at  2.30  P.M.  and  bring  this  invitation  with  you. 

Two  hundred  parents  turned  up  at  this  meet- 

36 


RECREATION  UNDER  GUIDANCE 

ing,  most  of  them  eagerly  interested  in  the  plan. 
So  many  names  of  children  for  the  school  were 
brought  in  that  a  waiting  list  was  formed  and  each 
mother  was  told  that  if  her  child  was  absent  three 
consecutive  days  without  a  good  reason  his  place 
would  be  taken  by  another  child. 

The  school  was  filled  during  the  term  to  ninety- 
three  per  cent  of  its  full  limit,  and  the  directors  of 
the  school  attributed  this  high  percentage  first 
to  the  talks  with  parents  by  the  school  visitor, 
and  secondly  to  the  psychological  effect  of  the  ac- 
curate records  kept  on  the  school  cards.  These 
cards  were  brought  by  each  boy  and  girl  and 
punched  every  day  as  impressively  as  though  they 
had  been  season  railroad  tickets.  During  the 
third  year  of  the  Massachusetts  Civic  League 
Vacation  Schools  the  committee  tried  an  entirely 
different  type  of  curriculum,  if  one  may  use  so 
stiff  a  word  for  so  happy  a  piece  of  learning.  The 
attempt  was  made  with  a  group  of  teachers, 
largely  from  the  Chicago  University  School,  to 
have  little  children  get  a  clearer  idea  of  the  life 
about  them  in  city  and  country.  The  plan  of  the 
school  was  to  enlarge  the  children's  interests  and 
to  train  their  powers  of  observation,  reasoning, 
and  acting  by  letting  them  work  out  for  them- 
selves methods  of  obtaining  food  and  clothing. 

37 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

Cooking,  sewing,  drawing,  modeling,  reading, 
arithmetic  were  all  made  to  center  round  this 
plan. 

A  cultivation  of  crops  was  carried  on  in  the 
large  school  yard,  and  here  corn,  potatoes,  lettuce, 
and  tomatoes  were  plan  ted.  Inside  the  schoolroom 
a  miniature  model  farm  was  designed.  Fences, 
rakes,  ploughs,  and  churn  dashers  of  diminutive 
size  were  made  in  the  carpentry  room.  Grass 
seed  was  planted,  and  real  oaks  from  little  acorns 
grew. 

In  the  section  of  Boston  where  the  school  was 
held,  many  of  the  fathers  of  the  pupils  were  tai- 
lors by  trade.  Cloth  was  a  familiar  object.  The 
teacher  of  textiles  seized  the  opportunity  to  train 
the  children  in  observation  and  in  thoughtfulness 
by  tracing  the  evolution  of  cotton  and  wool  into 
cloth.  She  asked  the  children  about  the  clothes 
they  had  on.  Gradually  they  traced  back  the 
origin  of  clothes  through  the  store  to  the  factory 
and,  with  some  help,  to  the  cotton  and  flax  plants 
and  the  sheep.  The  class  was  then  shown  a  whole 
fleece.  The  children  worked  out  the  idea  that  the 
wool  must  be  combed  and  twisted.  After  they 
had  experimented  in  twisting  the  thread,  one 
child  complained  that  he  needed  another  child  to 
take  hold  of  his  thread  so  that  he  could  twist  it 
38 


RECREATION  UNDER  GUIDANCE 

easily.  It  was  suggested  that  he  should  find  some- 
thing to  take  the  place  of  another  child,  and  he 
tied  the  thread  to  the  back  of  a  chair.  Several 
children,  tired  of  twisting  wool  with  their  fingers, 
suggested  that  tops  would  do  it  quicker.  At  last 
a  primitive  spindle  was  devised  and  was  made  by 
the  children  in  the  carpentry  shop.  The  class 
then  began  to  think  about  weaving.  The  children 
found  it  difficult  to  keep  the  threads  in  place,  and 
when  asked  what  they  needed  replied:  "Some  one 
to  hold  his  hands  on  both  ends  of  the  threads." 
From  this  suggestion  a  frame  of  four  pieces  of 
wood  with  nails  to  hold  the  warp  threads 
was  worked  out,  and  the  idea  of  a  loom  was 
formed. 

This  example  illustrates  the  value  of  a  new  type 
of  work  in  vacation  schools,  one  that  shall  help  the 
pupils  to  see  and  understand  a  little  of  the  life  of 
which  they  are  a  part.  Private  associations,  rais- 
ing money  from  individuals  who  have  faith  in 
their  work  and  are  willing  to  risk  temporary  fail- 
ure, can  make  such  experiments  more  easily  than 
the  public  school  authorities. 

It  may  well  be  a  function  of  private  enterprise 
to  bring  together  in  direct  cooperation  all  the  vol- 
unteer agencies  working  for  school  children.  A 
part  of  the  plan  of  the  Vacation  School  Commit- 
39 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

tee  of  the  Massachusetts  Civic  League  was  to  hold 
such  conferences.  In  one  of  them  the  following 
questions  were  discussed:  — 

(1)  How  can  we  secure  regular  attendance  without 
making  the  school  compulsory? 

(2)  Is  it  advisable  to  have  any  part  of  the  expenses 
paid  by  the  parents? 

(3)  For  what  ages  is  the  vacation  school  work  most 
important? 

(4)  How  far  and  in  what  ways  should  the  summer 
work  differ  from  that  of  the  winter? 

(5)  Do  excursions  form  a  desirable  part  of  the 
work,  and  how  should  they  be  conducted? 

(6)  Should  it  be  an  aim  of  vacation  schools  to  give 
instruction  that  will  help  the  children  to  earn 
money  or  prepare  for  trades? 

(7)  How  can  the  relation  between  the  school  and 
the  children's  parents  best  be  developed? 

(8)  Ought  there  to  be  strict  discipline  in  the  sum- 
mer work,  or  should  the  standard  be  relaxed? 

A  movement  even  stronger  than  that  for  va- 
cation schools  is  the  playground  movement.  It 
speaks  for  itself  and  needs  few  words.  It  is  pecul- 
iarly a  field  for  volunteers.  Playgrounds  con- 
nected with  schools  need  the  help  of  financial  aid 
or  of  supervision.  These  can  often  be  given  by 
volunteer  associations  before  the  school  board  or 
city  council  is  ready  to  supply  the  needed  money. 
40 


RECREATION  UNDER  GUIDANCE 

To  the  women's  organizations  throughout  the 
country  more  than  to  any  other  one  agency,  the  chil- 
dren owe  the  extensive  use  of  school  yards  for  play 
purposes. 

As  an  experiment  the  Newark  Board  of  Education 
left  open  to  the  public  during  the  summer  all  its 
school  yards  which  were  without  apparatus  or  super- 
vised play  activities.  Hardly  any  children  visited  the 
yards,  many  not  having  a  single  child  in  them  all  day 
long.  A  successful  playground  cannot  be  run  without 
skilled  play  leaders.1 

In  Auburn,  New  York,  the  various  parent- 
teacher  associations  carried  on  playgrounds,  col- 
lected money,  engaged  leaders,  secured  yards, 
and  supplied  apparatus.  In  Madison,  New  Jer- 
sey, two  associations,  the  Civic  Association  and 
the  Thursday  Morning  Club,  carried  on  the  work 
with  some  financial  help  from  the  city  council. 
It  is  an  effective  bit  of  cooperation  when,  as  in 
Buffalo,  members  of  the  playground  force  take 
part  in  organizing  games  at  recess  in  the  school 
yards. 

The  summer  use  of  playgrounds  indirectly  but 
clearly  helps  the  schools:  — 

Teachers  point  out  [writes  Perry]  that  the  children 
who  have  had  the  advantages  of  the  yards  during  the 

1  Clarence  A.  Perry,  Wider  Use  of  the  School  Plant,  pp.  165 
and  172. 

41 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

vacation  return  to  their  studies  in  the  fall  much  more 
alert  and  ready  to  work.  These  results  are  especially 
noticeable  in  the  case  of  boys  and  girls  who  have  at- 
tended supervised  playgrounds.  Here  the  necessity 
of  waiting  one's  turn,  of  having  a  referee  settle  dis- 
putes, of  playing  games  according  to  a  program,  is  so 
obviously  related  to  every  one's  enjoyment  that  dis- 
cipline becomes  popular,  and  is  supported  most  ar- 
dently sometimes  by  those  who,  in  the  classroom, 
have  been  its  most  constant  foes.1 

1  Wider  Use  of  the  School  Plant,  p.  181. 


IV 

THE  ENJOYMENT  OF  ART 

ART  has  a  far-off  sound  to  Americans.  The  jnu- 
seums  have  been  places  for  the  few  to  go  and  look 
at  rather  than  for  the  many  to  use.  But  this  state 
of  things  is  fast  changing.  The  Metropolitan  Mu- 
seum of  Art  in  New  York  sounds  the  keynote  of 
its  present  work  as  educational  efficiency.  See 
how  much  a  school-teacher  can  glean  of  this  har- 
vest for  her  pupils.  In  1 905 ,  the  Museum  voted : — 

Whereas,  the  Trustees  of  the  Metropolitan  Mu- 
seum of  Art  desire  to  extend  the  educational  oppor- 
tunities of  the  museum  as  far  as  practicable  to  the 
teachers  and  scholars  of  the  public  schools  of  the  city, 

Resolved,  that  the  Board  of  Education  be  notified 
of  the  willingness  of  the  Trustees  to  issue  on  applica- 
tion to  any  teacher  in  the  public  schools  .  .  .  a  ticket 
entitling  such  teacher  to  free  admittance  to  the  mu- 
seum at  all  times  when  the  museum  is  open  to  the 
public  .  .  .  whether  alone  or  accompanied  by  not 
more  than  six  public  school  scholars  for  whose  con- 
duct such  teacher  is  willing  to  become  responsible. 

One  thousand  and  ninety-three  applications 
for  teachers'  tickets  were  received  in  1905.  But 
teachers  and  pupils,  wandering  weary -footed 

43 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

through  long  galleries  filled  with  bare  white  stat- 
ues, or  peering  into  glass  cases  where  many  small 
objects  a  bit  broken  are  pinioned,  get  little  idea 
of  the  meaning  of  the  museum's  treasures.  The 
Metropolitan  Museum  recognized  this,  and  in 
1907  made  plans  for  talks  to  school  folk  on  art, 
history,  and  literature.  A  room  holding  200  peo- 
ple is  set  aside  for  the  use  of  teachers  and  pu- 
pils. Here  stereopticon  lectures  on  any  branch  of 
work  that  can  be  illustrated  by  photographs  of 
the  museum's  treasures  are  given.  Over  10,000 
lantern  slides  of  objects  in  the  museum  and  out- 
side it  are  loaned  to  the  schools  on  request.  Spe- 
cial courses  are  given  to  high  school  teachers  of 
history,  art,  English,  and  classics.  In  1908,  teach- 
ers with  their  pupils  to  the  number  of  5627  came 
to  the  museum. 

Everywhere  wise  people  are  seeing  that  labels 
and  catalogues  are  but  dumb  guides.  We  need  a 
human  voice.  The  Metropolitan  Museum  has  an 
instructor  who  in  1911  escorted  3700  teachers 
through  the  collections  explaining  their  history  and 
meaning.  No  charge  was  made  for  this  service. 

Of  the  response  of  the  children  themselves, 
New  York  has  interesting  words  to  say :  * — 

1  Metropolitan  Museum,  New  York,  Bulletin,  September, 
1912,  vol.  in,  no.  9. 

44 


THE  ENJOYMENT  OF  ART 

An  enthusiastic  visiting  teacher  of  the  school  de- 
termined to  carry  out  a  long-cherished  plan  to  make 
the  museum  a  vital  influence  in  the  lives  of  these  chil- 
dren. She  wanted  to  drive  out  of  their  minds  certain 
thoughts  by  the  substitution  of  a  thought  of  some- 
thing refined.  She  wanted  to  give  them  while  young 
ideals,  that  life  to  them  might  be  more  than  material 
possession  and  that  their  power  of  enjoyment  of  the 
things  about  them  might  be  less  restricted  by  igno- 
rance and  dulled  sensibilities. 

With  this  ideal  in  mind  the  classes  were  begun. 
One  group  was  made  up  of  troublesome  boys  in 
the  school. 

We  chose  first,  the  life  and  art  of  early  Egypt,  try- 
ing to  draw  from  them  their  own  impressions  and  ex- 
planations of  what  they  saw.  At  the  end  of  the  hour 
they  voted  to  come  again  and  many  of  these  boys 
were  constant  members  of  the  class  for  the  rest  of 
the  spring.  One  boy,  fond  of  drawing,  made  admir- 
able quick  sketches  as  we  talked  about  the  objects. 
His  book  contained  sketches  of  Egyptian  boats  and 
necklaces,  a  Greek  temple,  a  chariot.  .  .  .  One  boy 
gave  up  a  birthday  party  and  another  a  May  party 
to  come.  .  .  .  Mothers  returned  on  Sunday  after- 
noons and  went  through  the  galleries  again  with  the 
boys. 

In  many  cases  the  experiment  of  taking  school 
children  to  visit  art  museums  has  been  made 

45 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

with  the  aim  of  quickening  observation  and  giv- 
ing happy  ways  of  spending  leisure.  But  if  the 
schools  and  the  museums  are  to  be  partners  in 
special  forms  of  education,  the  museum  must  be 
used  definitely  to  enrich  subjects  already  taught 
in  school.  To  most  of  us  the  needles  we  seek  in  a 
museum  are  hidden  in  a  haystack  of  bewildering 
aisles  and  cases.  The  teacher  needs  a  magnet  to 
find  her  needles.  Such  magnets  the  museums  are 
beginning  to  supply.  Only  a  lover  of  children  and 
a  clear-eyed  believer  in  the  value  of  art  museums 
can  plan  this  work.  In  Boston  the  education  com- 
mittee of  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  has  in  its 
midst  a  seer,  prophetic  and  faithful.  She  sees 
that  at  five  different  facets  the  collections  of  art 
museums  reflect  light  on  school  work.  Art  may 
light  up  literature,  history,  geography,  drawing, 
and  industrial  training.  At  her  suggestion  the 
use  of  objects  within  the  museum  to  enrich  these 
school  topics  has  been  carried  out.  Dr.  Arthur 
Fairbanks,  director  of  the  Boston  Museum  of 
Fine  Arts,  and  long  a  student  of  Greek  classics, 
has  helped  to  make  vivid  the  school  stories  of 
Greece  and  Rome  by  making  a  list  of  objects  in 
the  museum  that  illustrate  Greek  and  Latin 
myths  and  legends. 
One  Boston  teacher,  with  the  help  of  the  offi- 


THE  ENJOYMENT  OF  ART 

cers  of  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  uses  in  her 
classes  over  six  hundred  photographs  illustrating 
Greek  and  Roman  history  from  prehistoric  times 
to  the  time  of  the  Roman  Empire.  Once  a  month 
her  pupils  come  to  the  museum,  see  the  originals, 
make  sketches,  and  go  back  to  work  with  a  more 
concrete  grasp  on  history. 

History  and  geography  need  this  quickening 
impetus  of  eye  and  touch.  Here  in  the  Boston 
Museum  of  Fine  Arts  is  a  clay  cup  made  in  Aby- 
dos  at  a  time  when  the  Israelites  were  in  captiv- 
ity in  Egypt.  You  can  still  see  and  feel  the  mark 
of  the  potter's  thumb  and  finger  impressed  there 
on  the  soft  clay  four  thousand  years  ago.  The  lip 
of  this  cup  is  curved  that  we  may  pour  from  it;  it 
has  a  handle,  and  its  sides  are  decorated.  Here  is 
a  life  bust  of  Nero,  hateful  in  his  sneering  com- 
placency, and  here  a  mirror  of  polished  metal 
used  by  a  queen  in  Egypt.  Paintings,  too,  reveal 
the  meaning  of  history. 

If  the  struggle  between  Spain  and  Holland  is  stud- 
ied in  school,  the  contrasting  characters  of  the  Span- 
ish and  Dutch  races,  their  different  governments,  and 
opposite  points  of  view,  will  be  the  better  understood 
if  the  student  is  familiar  with  their  painters.  Velas- 
quez shows  the  life  of  the  court  in  his  land  of  courte- 
ous manners,  of  despotism,  and  of  power.  In  striking 

47 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

contrast  with  this  is  the  life  depicted  by  the  Dutch 
painters.  They  painted  the  common,  everyday  life  of 
the  people,  —  the  pastures,  the  cows,  the  windmills, 
the  harbors  filled  with  boats;  and  they  also  painted 
portraits  of  the  strong  men  and  women  who  made 
their  history.  One  cannot  study  the  paintings  and 
prints  of  Spain  and  Holland,  represented  in  our  mu- 
seum, without  gaining  an  understanding  of  these 
peoples  that  books  alone  cannot  give.1 

An  interesting  bit  of  interchange  between  the 
art  museum  and  the  public  schools  in  relation  to 
drawing  and  painting  was  made  by  Professor  Wal- 
ter Sargent,  now  at  the  University  of  Chicago. 
While  in  charge  of  drawing  and  manual  arts  in 
the  public  schools  of  Boston  and  a  member  of 
the  education  committee  of  the  Museum  of  Fine 
Arts,  he  obtained  from  the  museum  photographs 
showing  skies,  clouds,  sunrise,  and  sunset.  These 
photographs  he  took  to  the  schools  and  the  chil- 
dren drew  from  them,  coloring  them  according 
to  their  imagination  and  from  watching  sky  and 
sunset  on  their  daily  way.  Then  a  group  was 
taken  to  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  and  shown  the 
original  paintings.  The  children  saw  the  paint- 
ings freshly  now,  for  they,  like  the  original  artists, 
had  pondered  over  color. 

1  Anna  D.  Slocum,  in  Proceedings  of  the  American  Association 
of  Museums,  vol.  rv,  1911. 

48 


THE  ENJOYMENT  OF  ART 

The  infant  industrial  movement  in  education 
is  already  receiving  protection  from  art  muse- 
ums. The  Boston  Museum  gives  a  course  of  lec- 
tures on  textiles  to  teachers  from  Simmons  Col- 
lege, the  Girls'  High  School  of  Practical  Arts, 
and  the  Trade  School  for  Girls  in  Boston.  The 
Trade  School  sends  to  this  course  the  heads  of 
its  millinery,  dressmaking,  and  art  departments. 
Through  this  course  the  rare  and  beautiful  tapes- 
tries, garments,  and  embroideries  in  the  museum 
are  playing  their  part  in  setting  a  standard  for  the 
garments  of  to-day. 

Museums  of  science  like  museums  of  fine  arts 
are  advancing  with  liberal  offers  to  help  the 
schools.  Among  the  best  stands  out  the  Children's 
Museum  of  the  Brooklyn  Institute  of  Arts  and 
Sciences,  especially  planned  to  interest  children 
and  in  touch  with  the  public  schools,  though  not 
officially  connected  with  them.  The  Children's 
Museum  helps  to  enliven  school  work  and  to  give 
to  lessons  clues  of  related  interest  through  spec- 
imens of  birds,  flowers,  insects,  and  ferns,  and 
talks  about  them.  One  case  of  birds  is  labeled  ap- 
pealingly,  "Birds  we  read  about";  and  in  it  is 
shown,  among  other  birds,  the  great  albatross  fa- 
miliar in  name  to  every  child-reader  of  the  Ancient 

49 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

Mariner.  In  history  as  well  as  in  science  the  col- 
lections of  this  museum  enrich  school  work.  In  a 
special  room  little  models  and  dressed  dolls  illus- 
trate accurately  and  graphically  some  scenes  from 
early  French,  English,  Spanish,  and  Dutch  set- 
tlements in  America.  Lectures  relating  to  school 
work,  talks  about  Lincoln  and  Washington,  are 
held  on  appropriate  days,  and  are  so  popular 
that  the  small  lecture  hall  has  often  to  be  filled 
with  three  different  groups  of  children  one  after 
another.  Eighteen  thousand  children  come  to  the 
Children's  Museum  each  year. 

The  festive  art  of  music  has  long  had  its  place 
in  schools,  but  only  of  late  have  private  societies 
helped  to  bring  its  influence  into  the  lives  of 
school  children.  The  social  centers  are  the  nat- 
ural stamping-ground  for  orchestra  and  singing. 
Many  a  lad  has  there  blown  his  inertia  away  on  a 
horn  and  beat  out  his  roughness  on  a  big  drum. 

In  Chelsea,  Massachusetts,  a  music-loving 
woman's  club  started,  with  the  help  of  the  super- 
visor of  music,  violin  classes,  at  twenty-five  cents 
a  lesson,  for  all  school  children  who  wanted  them. 
In  many  instances,  as  in  Richmond,  Indiana,  the 
high  school  has  opened  its  doors  for  concerts,  or- 
chestras and  choral  festivals.  In  Richmond  the 

50 


THE  ENJOYMENT  OF  ART 

school  board  has  done  more.  It  supplies  the 
teacher,  and  in  connection  with  the  local  com- 
mercial club  buys  the  more  expensive  instru- 
ments for  the  student  orchestra. 


TRAINING  FOR  WORK 

Vocational  Guidance 

"WHAT  shall  I  do?"  every  boy  and  girl  asks 
sooner  or  later,  and  we  attempt  wisely  or  igno- 
rantly  to  reply.  Vocational  guidance  is  the  mod- 
ern long-winded  word  for  a  difficult  yet  common 
undertaking  that  nearly  all  of  us  must  by  force  of 
circumstances  have  a  hand  in.  The  newer  aspect 
of  this  movement  to  help  boys  and  girls,  leaving 
school,  is  that  it  attempts  to  give  counsel  based 
on  careful  study  of  the  full  facts  of  the  case, — 
the  boy,  the  home,  the  job,  the  pay,  the  environ- 
ment, the  future  prospects.  This  more  expert 
vocational  guidance  has  been  initiated  almost 
wholly  by  private  associations. 

Vocational  guidance  was  started  on  a  definite 
plan  in  Boston  in  1907  under  a  man  of  genius,  Dr. 
Frank  Parsons,  who  organized  a  bureau  for  the 
purpose  of  advising  boys  in  their  choice  of  work. 
Dr.  Parsons  died  suddenly  a  few  years  later,  but 
his  work  has  been  continued  and  his  book,  Choos- 
ing a  Vocation,1  remains  as  stimulating  reading. 
1  Published  by  Houghton  Mifflin  Company. 

52 


TRAINING  FOR  WORK 

Since  the  reorganization  of  the  Vocation  Bureau 
in  1909,  its  relation  to  public  school  pupils  has 
become  intimate.  The  Vocation  Bureau  works 
directly  with  the  public  schools  through  their 
Committee  on  Vocational  Direction.  Mass  meet- 
ings are  held  to  interest  parents  and  teachers,  and 
in  each  school  a  vocational  counselor  gives  advice 
to  the  children  who  are  leaving  school.  The  Bu- 
reau issues  pamphlets  on  leading  industries,  giv- 
ing the  physical  conditions,  the  skill  needed,  the 
pay,  and  the  chances  of  advancement.  Over  one 
hundred  industries,  including  among  others  the 
callings  of  the  shoemaker,  the  machinist,  the 
baker,  the  architect,  have  been  thus  investigated 
and  described. 

Similar  work  for  girls  is  done  by  the  Girls' 
Trade  Education  League.  It  makes  a  study  of 
the  business  opportunities  open  to  girls  between 
the  ages  of  fourteen  and  eighteen,  and  by  its  sus- 
taining arm  tries  to  hold  girls  from  falling  hap- 
hazard into  the  nearest  niche  of  work  regardless 
of  their  own  fitness  or  the  future  before  them. 
The  League  makes  a  careful  investigation  of  all 
occupations  in  which  young  girls  are  employed 
near  Boston,  the  wages,  the  moral  and  sanitary 
conditions,  the  character  of  the  work,  the  possi- 
bility of  advance,  and  also  the  qualities  of  mind 

S3 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

and  body  that  a  girl  needs  to  do  her  work 
well. 

Take,  for  example,  the  subject  of  millinery.  A 
short  pamphlet  published  by  the  League  gives  any 
girl  the  chance  to  know  the  processes  of  the  work 
from  making  bands  and  linings  to  the  final  trim- 
ming. The  bulletin  tells  her  the  pay  in  different 
parts  of  the  work,  from  the  assistant  helper,  at 
from  three  to  six  dollars  a  week,  to  the  trimmer, 
who  rises  to  twenty-five  dollars  a  week.  It  warns 
her  that  the  disadvantage  in  millinery  is  that 
the  trade  season  is  short  and  advises  her  to  find 
chances  for  other  employment  during  the  dull 
periods.  At  Christmas  time,  when  the  world  is 
too  busy  to  buy  hats,  she  may  easily  find  a 
place  in  a  store. 

The  pamphlet  then  tells  the  girl  where  she  can 
best  learn  the  trade  and  suggests  the  qualifica- 
tions needed.  She  requires  good  eyesight,  ability 
to  use  her  fingers  quickly,  perseverance,  and  en- 
durance. She  must  have  dry  and  deft  hands.  It 
will  be  good  if  she  is  interested  in  the  people  to 
whom  she  sells  her  goods;  it  is  essential  that  she 
should  like  to  sew  and  to  combine  colors. 

Preparation  for  work  has  many  aspects.  One 
bit  of  guidance  has  been  the  special  interest  of  the 
Committee  on  Vocational  Opportunities  of  the 

54 


TRAINING  FOR  WORK 

Women's  Municipal  League  of  Boston.  This 
committee  has  published  charts  and  a  hand- 
book showing  the  work  of  over  two  hundred  of 
the  best  vocational  schools  accessible  to  Boston. 

Boys  and  girls  leaving  the  regular  school  course 
are  often  discouraged  from  taking  industrial  or 
professional  training  by  not  knowing  where  to  go, 
or  what  the  cost  and  the  outcome  will  be.  Just 
as  the  Girls'  Trade  Education  League  gives  in- 
formation concerning  the  actual  trades,  so  the 
Women's  Municipal  League  offers  direct  help  in 
relation  to  opportunities  for  trade  training.  It 
adds  one  special  feature.  It  publishes  a  full  and 
interesting  list  of  the  educational  and  industrial 
opportunities  for  the  physically  handicapped.  To 
this  special  chart  the  League  adds  its  word  of 
good  cheer.  "  Below  are  listed  some  of  the  schools 
that  take  away  the  handicaps  from  children  and 
give  them  chances  to  be  happy  and  useful  citi- 
zens." Schools  for  the  blind,  deaf,  and  crippled 
are  in  this  list,  and,  as  on  the  other  charts,  the 
headings  cover  the  name  and  address  of  each 
school,  its  purpose,  subjects  taught,  special  fea- 
tures, requirements  for  admission,  cost,  season, 
length  of  course,  and  the  placing  of  grad- 
uates. 

Outside  of  special  schools  for  the  handicapped, 
55 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

the  schools-listed  include  industrial,  commercial, 
continuation,  professional,  art,  and  music  schools 
and  the  training  in  settlement  classes.  A  richly 
varied  outlook  is  suggested  for  choice.  There  are 
excellent  schools  listed  for  dressmaking,  millinery, 
stenography,  automobiling,  teaching,  nursing^ 
engineering,  pottery-making,  watchmaking,  draw- 
ing, music,  telegraphy,  piano-tuning,  printing, 
and  many  other  subjects.  The  work  of  the  Voca- 
tion Bureau,  the  Girls'  Trade  Education  League, 
and  of  the  Women's  Municipal  League  all  illus- 
trate how  valuable  to  the  public  schools  may  be 
trained  and  earnest  associations  of  volunteers. 
The  school  authorities  of  Boston  are  in  touch  with 
all  three  organizations.  Among  the  best  school 
experiments  are  those  where  expert  and  amateur 
go  hand  in  hand,  blazing  a  trail  through  unknown 
woods. 

The  Philadelphia  Public  Education  Associa- 
tion, long  noted  for  its  enlightened  and  steadfast 
service  to  the  schools,  made  in  1912  an  admirable 
report  under  the  alluring  title  of  The  Child,  the 
School,  and  the  Job.  What  firm  footing  do  not  the 
Saxon  words  suggest!  This  study  was  made  at 
the  distinct  request  of  the  Philadelphia  School 
Board,  to  whom  Superintendent  Brumbaugh 
wrote:  — 

56 


TRAINING  FOR  WORK 

There  is  need  of  a  comprehensive  study  of  this  en- 
tire problem  (the  relation  of  child  labor  to  education) 
and  while  it  is  a  legitimate  function  of  the  Board  of 
Education  to  support  such  a  study,  I  am  of  the  belief 
that  certain  volunteer  associations  of  this  city,  com- 
posed of  many  patriotic  citizens,  would  gladly  under- 
take the  study  without  expense  to  the  taxpayer,  if 
your  body  were  to  indicate  your  desire  for  such  a 
study  and  offer  such  cooperative  support  as  to  you 
may  seem  wise. 

The  Public  Education  Association  at  once  offered 
its  services  in  making  such  a  study,  and  in  July, 
1912,  a  Bureau  of  Vocational  Guidance  for  the 
pupils  of  the  public  schools  was  established  by 
the  school  board.  In  the  report  of  the  Public 
Education  Association  the  proportion  of  children 
entering  factories,  stores,  housework,  offices,  and 
street  trades  was  given  not  only  in  dry  percent- 
age tables.  A  clever  cartoon  pictured  the  same 
facts  in  illustrations  of  boys  and  girls  doing  the 
particular  job,  from  the  forty- three  per  cent  of 
factory  employees  with  their  bobbins  down  to  the 
wee  figure  of  one  and  one  half  per  cent  calling  out 
newspapers.  In  this  case,  as  in  practically  all 
cases  of  effective  vocational  guidance,  the  Public 
Education  Association  had  direct  access  to  the 
school  records,  and  the  attendance  officers  agreed 

57 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

to  add  to  their  regular  inquiries  questions  con- 
cerning the  kinds  of  industry  and  the  wages  re- 
ceived by  children  of  fourteen  to  sixteen.  The 
report  showed:  — 

1.  That  the  problem  of  the  working  child  in  Phila- 
delphia is  not  an  immigration  problem;  over 
half  of  those  reported  as  at  work  are  of  the  sec- 
ond generation  of  American  birth. 

2.  That  it  is  not  the  problem  of  the  boy  alone, 
since  over  forty-nine  per  cent  of  the  workers 
are  girls. 

3.  That  the  employments  chosen  offer  a  relatively 
large  initial  wage,  but  little  chance  for  improve- 
ment. 

Employment  Supervision 

The  school  of  Civics  and  Philanthropy  in  Chi- 
cago has  since  1911  guided  a  small  experiment  in 
employment  supervision,  thus  carrying  one  step 
farther  the  idea  of  vocational  guidance.  Names 
of  boys  and  girls  who  leave  the  truant  school  and 
several  of  the  grammar  schools  are  given  to  the 
head  of  the  School  of  Civics  and  Philanthropy, 
and  through  trained  workers  the  school  places 
these  youngsters  in  situations  fitted  to  them.  It 
is  a  new  and  a  delicate  task.  It  does  not  yet  lie 
within  the  usual  radius  of  public  school  work, 
though  the  enlarging  of  the  swift-growing  school 

58 


TRAINING  FOR  WORK 

sphere  seems  rapidly  to  be  bringing  even  the 
actual  placing  of  children  in  positions  within  its 
scope.  This  is  just  the  moment  for  trained  help 
and  financial  support  from  outside  the  public 
school  department.  School  authorities  cannot 
wisely  ask  from  the  city  an  appropriation  for  a 
very  uncertain  experiment.  The  idea  of  voca- 
tional training  has  come  down  solidly  to  earth  and 
has  taken  root.  The  schools  are  facing,  with  some 
hesitation,  the  difficult  problems  of  vocational 
guidance  and  actual  placing  of  boys  and  girls. 

It  is  at  this  stage  that  trained  amateurs — free 
from  the  financial  restrictions  of  a  defined  budget, 
free  from  pressure  to  do  for  the  whole  town  what 
they  do  for  a  single  school,  free  largely  from 
disaster  if  the  experiment  fails  —  can  help  the 
schools.  The  history  of  the  experiment  in  Chi- 
cago is  of  value  to  all  enterprising  schools. 

The  Chicago  School  of  Civics  and  Philan- 
thropy, a  joint  committee  from  the  Woman's 
Club,  the  Chicago  Association  of  Collegiate 
Alumnae,  and  the  Woman's  City  Club,  united  to 
make  possible  this  experiment  of  placing  chil- 
dren leaving  the  grammar  schools.  They  have 
had,  in  addition,  the  salary  of  two  paid  workers, 
one  given  by  the  Chicago  Woman's  Aid,  and  one 
given  by  the  Association  of  Commerce,  help  from 

59 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

the  residents  of  several  settlements,  and  coopera- 
tion from  a  number  of  other  clubs. 

In  1913,  the  board  of  education  gave  quarters 
to  the  placement  workers  in  the  school  commit- 
tee office,  under  the  definite  title  of  Department 
of  Vocational  Supervision,  supplied  their  clerical 
and  office  expenses  and  gave  them  careful  over- 
sight. The  workers  in  1913  were  holding  office 
hours  in  sixteen  different  schools  and  receiving 
at  these  offices  children  from  sixty-four  other 
schools.  It  is  suggestive  that  this  association, 
originally  meant  to  find  the  best  employment  for 
children,  has  more  and  more  come  to  urge  boys 
and  girls  of  fourteen  to  sixteen  to  stay  in  school. 
The  department  finds  so  little  opportunity  for 
skilled  and  healthful  employment  for  children  as 
young  as  fourteen  that  an  important  part  of  its 
aim  is  stated  thus:  — 

1.  To  encourage  boys  and  girls  to  remain  in  school 
and  to  continue  their  education  after  leaving 
the  elementary  school. 

2.  To  refrain  from  suggesting  to  the  child  the  possi- 
bilities of  going  to  work  before  it  is  absolutely 
necessary. 

The   vocational   supervision   department  finds 
that  the  majority  of  the  children  who  ask  for  ad- 
vice about  work  can  well  afford  to  return  to  school, 
60 


TRAINING  FOR  WORK 

and  also  that  there  is  little  good  employment  for 
children  between  fourteen  and  sixteen,  and  that 
every  day  fewer  employers  are  taking  them.  In 
view  of  these  facts,  the  wise  directors  are  studying 
the  industrial  opportunities  for  boys  and  girls  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  free  vocational  schools. 
They  hope  to  persuade  employers  to  send  their 
young  helpers  to  such  schools  for  at  least  a  few 
hours  each  week.  Thus  a  society  started  outside 
the  schools  is  encouraging  children  to  continue 
longer  at  school. 

A  Placement  Bureau 

r  There  are  times  when  one  sharp-pointed  experi- 
ence will  stab  our  spirits  wide  awake.  Here  is  a 
true  description  of  wasted  youth  that  makes  any 
reader  long  to  help:  — 

A  TRUE  STORY 

On  the  last  day  of  last  January,  John  Panello,  aged 
fifteen  years  and  five  months,  graduated  from  a  pub- 
lic grammar  school  in  New  York.  On  the  2oth  of 
February  he  got  his  "working  papers"  from  the 
board  of  health.  In  school  he  had  been  fond  of  arith- 
metic and  from  childhood  had  wanted  to  become  a 
bookkeeper.  But  the  classroom  had  become  irksome 
to  him,  and  his  parents,  financially  comfortable,  had 
just  "  taken  it  for  granted  "  that  he  would  go  to  work 
61 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

after  graduation.  He  received  no  answer  to  his  first 
application  for  a  job  —  that  of  office-boy  in  a  place 
where  he  hoped  that  he  might  work  up  to  a  position 
as  bookkeeper.  So  during  the  first  three  weeks  after 
leaving  school  he  spent  his  mornings  looking  for  work 
and  his  afternoons  gathering  bits  of  wood  with  an- 
other boy  and  selling  them  around  the  neighborhood 
for  kindling. 

His  efforts  finally  got  him  a  job  as  errand-boy  for 
a  dyeing  and  cleaning  establishment.  Five  dollars  a 
week  were  the  wages,  and  tips  amounted  to  a  dollar 
or  two  extra.  At  the  end  of  one  week  the  boy  who  had 
had  the  job  before  came  back  and  John  was  "  fired. " 
He  thought  that  if  he  could  have  stayed  there  five 
years  he  could  have  "got  ahead." 

After  a  day's  hunt  he  saw  a  sign,  "Boy  Wanted/' 
and  was  taken  on  by  a  firm  manufacturing  ladies' 
hats.  Here  he  swept  the  floor,  ran  errands,  and  helped 
to  pack.  At  the  end  of  two  weeks,  during  which  he 
had  been  paid  $4  a  week,  he  left  because  "  a  feller  who 
had  been  there  four  years  was  getting  only  $6  a  week.'1 

Before  leaving,  he  had  been  lucky  enough  to  get  a 
promise  of  a  job  with  a  millinery  firm.  At  first  his 
work  consisted  in  "going  for  stuff  to  the  first  floor," 
then  he  ran  a  crimping  machine,  and  next  was  de- 
tailed to  "get  the  cord  downstairs  for  the  men  who 
make  rugs."  After  a  week  and  a  half  of  this,  during 
which  his  wage  was  $4. 50,  "  another  feller  said,  'Come 
along  and  learn  carpentry,'"  so  John  got  a  job  at 
loading  and  unloading  wagons  for  a  firm  that  made 

62 


TRAINING  FOR  WORK 

wooden  boxes.  He  was  soon  allowed  to  sandpaper  the 
sides  of  boxes  with  a  machine,  and  then  was  put  at 
cutting  out  sides  for  boxes  with  a  circular  saw.  One 
afternoon  he  reversed  the  elevator  suddenly  and 
burned  out  the  fuse;  so  he  hurried  home,  afraid  to 
meet  the  elevator  man.  When  he  learned  next  day 
that  the  boss  was  going  to  move  to  Staten  Island,  he 
decided  to  quit,  though  he  was  getting  $5  a  week.  He 
had  been  with  the  firm  two  weeks. 

During  the  next  three  weeks  John  did  five  different 
kinds  of  work  for  a  manufacturer  of  jewelry  and  no- 
tions. He  was  making  $4.50,  but  when  a  man  said, 
"  Come  along,  I've  got  an  office  job  for  you/'  he  quit. 
The  "  office  job  "  consisted  in  acting  as  shipping  clerk, 
running  errands,  answering  the  telephone,  and  sweep- 
ing the  floor  for  a  manufacturer  of  artificial  flowers. 
He  is  still  there,  getting  $5  a  week.  He  does  n't 
think  much  of  the  work.  "  What  can  I  learn  there?  " 
he  asks. 

This  true  story  came  out  in  the  Survey  in  1912, 
and  almost  at  the  same  time  a  minute  experi- 
ment in  placement  work  was  begun  in  Roxbury, 
a  district  of  Boston.  For  some  years  there  had 
been  vocational  guidance  in  Boston:  that  is,  a  boy 
or  girl  would  be  told  about  different  trades  and 
given  good  advice  about  them.  The  initial  step 
toward  getting  work  was  taken,  but  the  boy  of 
fourteen  does  not  march  by  himself,  —  you  must 

63 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

take  more  than  a  single  step  with  him.  It  will  be 
some  time  before  he  can  walk  alone  in  the  con- 
fused and  narrow  path  of  the  working  world.  He 
needs  not  only  advice,  but  recurrent  help.  If  he 
falls  down  in  a  place,  he  must  be  picked  up.  If 
he  stumbles,  —  and  who  among  us  does  not,  — 
he  must  be  braced  to  new  effort  to  hold  himself 
upright.  All  careful  investigation  and  experience 
show  that  boys  of  fourteen  to  sixteen,  left  to 
themselves,  drift  from  one  job  to  another  or  fall 
to  loafing  on  the  streets  till  Satan  finds  suitable 
mischief  for  their  idle  hands  to  do.  In  the  effort  to 
relieve  Satan  of  a  part  of  this  care,  the  Placement 
Bureau  was  started  in  May,  1912,  by  the  Chil- 
dren's Welfare  League  of  Roxbury,  with  financial 
help  from  the  Educational  Department  of  the 
Women's  Municipal  League  and  the  Girls'  Trade 
Education  League.  The  intimate  cooperation  of 
this  group  of  workers  with  the  Boston  School 
Committee  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  head- 
master of  one  of  the  schools  was  made  chairman 
of  the  Committee  on  Education  and  Employ- 
ment. The  School  Committee  granted  the  list  of 
names  of  June  graduates  from  five  schools  near 
by  and  gave  offices  in  one  of  the  public  school 
buildings.  The  work  was  begun  by  interviews 
with  the  children  needing  work  and  their  teachers 


TRAINING  FOR  WORK 

and  parents.  Then  in  June  came  a  week  of  talks 
and  practical  excursions  for  the  children.  The 
schedule  for  one  day  reads  thus:  — 

Wednesday,  June  26  —  9  to  12 

General  Topic. 

How  to  apply  for  a  position,  with 
practical  demonstrations. 

Speaker. ,  Mr.  James  F.  Coburn,  Filene's  De- 

partment Store. 

Excursion.         (Boys)     Wentworth  Institute    (ma- 
chinery). 
(Girls)    Telephone  School. 

On  the  ist  of  July,  1912,  plans  for  actual  place- 
ment of  the  eighty-three  children  said  to  need 
employment  were  finished.  Seventeen  were  found 
to  be  under  the  legal  working  age:  seven  decided 
to  return  to  school,  and  one  was  unfit  for  any 
work.  This  left  fifty-eight  of  the  group  to  be 
placed.  Others  applied  later,  and  one  hundred 
and  ten  were  finally  placed;  sixty-four  by  the  Bu- 
reau and  forty-six  by  parents  and  friends.  The 
children  were  asked  what  work  they  wanted  to 
do.  Their  answers  were  pitifully  meager.  Ten 
boys  had  no  choice,  and  the  rest  looked  mostly  to 
store  work.  Only  twelve  expressed  individual 
tastes,  seven  embryo  machinists,  three  electri- 
cians, one  farmer,  and  one  theater  usher.  The 

65 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

girls  looked  also  to  stores  and  office  work.  Only 
five  of  the  twenty-nine  expressed  the  desire  to  be 
nursemaids.  Hardly  a  child  wished  to  follow  his 
father's  trade;  hardly  a  father  wished  his  boy  to 
choose  the  same  work. 

For  several  weeks  it  was  difficult  to  find  suitable 
places  for  these  immature,  untrained  children, 
but,  gradually,  carefully  traced  advertisements 
and  circular  letters  to  selected  employers  won 
their  way  and  offers  began  to  come  in.  Each 
place  was  personally  investigated  and  a  child 
fitted  to  it  was  chosen.  Then,  to  develop  initia- 
tive, the  child  was  sent  alone,  but  with  a  note  to 
the  employer,  who  was  asked  to  fill  out  and  return 
to  the  Bureau  the  date  of  employment  and  wages 
given.  The  positions  chosen  included  shipping, 
machine  work,  electricity,  engraving,  typewriting, 
office  work;  the  wages  varied  from  four  to  six  dol- 
lars a  week.  Nearly  a  thousand  applications  for 
workers  were  received  between  June  i,  1912,  and 
June  30,  1913.  After  a  year's  work  the  Place- 
ment Bureau  reports  that  1781  children  have 
been  actually  interviewed,  registered,  and  fol- 
lowed up  in  their  occupations.  These  children 
came  from  sixty-six  of  the  seventy-one  grammar 
schools  of  Boston.  Many  were  persuaded  to  go 
back  to  school.  Of  those  employed,  ninety-five 
66 


;  TRAINING  FOR  WORK 

per  cent  of  those  reported  were  doing  good  or  ex- 
cellent work;  sixty  per  cent  were  still  in  their  first 
positions,  and  twenty-five  per  cent  in  their  sec- 
ond; only  four  per  cent  had  made  frequent 
changes. 

The  Placement  Bureau  makes  its  test  of  suc- 
cess the  permanency  and  satisfaction  of  the  tie 
between  employer  and  employee.  The  children 
and  parents  are  seen;  the  employers  are  asked  for 
suggestions  as  to  how  a  boy's  or  girl's  work  can  be 
improved.  These  interviews  strengthen  not  only 
the  working  interest  and  ability,  but  the  human 
touch.  One  generous  employer  offered  to  loan  a 
boy  sent  to  him  sufficient  money  to  go  to  a  busi- 
ness college  and  thereby  earn  more  wages. 

The  Placement  Bureau,  therefore,  does  more 
than  place  children.  It  helps  to  keep  them  in 
place.  Once  in  every  week  or  two  the  employer 
is  asked  how  Johnnie  is  getting  on;  Johnnie's  par- 
ents are  asked;  Johnnie  himself  is  spurred  on  to 
work  and  contentment.  Even  a  skittish  horse 
keeps  straighter  on  his  path  for  a  friendly  voice 
and  a  guiding  rein.  Is  it  not  significant  that  two 
only  of  the  unbroken,  coltish  boys  for  whom  the 
Placement  Bureau  secured  work  during  the  first 
summer  lost  their  places? 

Among  the  best  ways  in  which  private  associa- 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

tions  can  help  solve  the  problems  of  the  public 
schools  is  that  of  the  initiation  of  new  and  often 
expensive  experiments  in  the  line  toward  which 
the  arrow  of  progress  flies.  Placing  at  work  and 
holding  to  interest  in  the  right  work  is  surely  a 
function  either  of  the  school  itself  or  of  some  pri- 
vate society  closely  in  sympathy  with  the  school. 
The  Placement  Bureau  is  a  peculiarly  effective  bit 
of  cooperation  between  the  public  schools  and 
organizations  interested  in  them.  It  has  called 
out  the  help  not  only  of  the  Children's  Welfare 
League,  the  Women's  Municipal  League,  the 
Girls'  Trade  Education  League,  but  of  the  Cham- 
ber of  Commerce,  the  Consumers'  League,  and 
groups  of  students  from  Harvard,  Radcliffe,  and 
Wellesley  College  who  gather  information  re- 
garding the  establishments  employing  boys  and 
girls. 

Experiments  like  those  in  Chicago  and  Boston 
may  well  be  repeated  or  rather  reenacted,  for  un- 
der other  conditions  they  would  not  be  the  same. 
Watch  a  child  cross  Broadway:  he  may  start  care- 
lessly, and  then,  terrified  by  the  noise,  rush  back 
to  the  sidewalk;  he  may  go  headlong  and  land 
breathless  on  the  other  side;  he  may  stumble  and 
fall,  with  danger  of  being  run  over.  It  is  more  dif- 
ficult to  cross  the  gap  between  school  and  work 
68 


TRAINING  FOR  WORK 

than  to  cross  Broadway.  The  untrained,  un- 
guided  boy  or  girl  of  fourteen  to  sixteen  is  usually 
unhappy  in  his  work  and  useless  to  his  employer. 
"  I  would  rather  pay  an  untrained  boy  of  fourteen 
to  keep  out  of  my  office  than  to  have  him  in  it," 
said  a  kindly  merchant  last  year. 

Business  men  are  welcoming  the  efforts  of  the 
Placement  Bureau.  "It  is  the  most  practical 
experiment  we've  encountered  in  many  a  day," 
they  often  say.  The  schools  can  well  afford  to 
watch  such  experiments  in  aid  of  their  graduates. 
More  help  will  spring  up  if  the  schools  ask  for  it. 

Vocational  education  and  industrial  training  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  investigation  of  industrial  oppor- 
tunities on  the  other,  are  throwing  out  splendid 
girders  toward  one  another,  but  the  meeting  of  the 
two  at  the  central  arch  will  never  be  consummated 
until  placement  is  a  part  of  the  masonry.  The  logical 
goal  of  all  vocational  education  of  teachers,  of  parents, 
or  of  pupils,  the  establishment  of  industrial  and  con- 
tinuation schools,  the  compilation  and  distribution 
of  charts  and  handbooks,  the  investigation  of  indus- 
trial opportunities  should  be  the  fitting  of  the  child 
not  only  for  but  into  his  lifework.1 

1  Helen  W.  Rogers,  The  Placement  Bureau?  Bulletin  of 
Women's  Municipal  League  of  Boston,  December,  1912, 
P-32. 

69 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

Classes  in  Salesmanship 

Part-time  schools  are  emerging  on  the  public 
school  horizon.  They  are  already  compulsory  for 
children  at  work  up  to  the  age  of  sixteen  in  Cin- 
cinnati and  in  Cleveland.  In  1913,  Massachu- 
setts passed  a  similar  law  requiring  part-time 
schooling  for  children  up  to  sixteen  when  so  voted 
by  the  school  board  of  any  town  or  city.  With 
part-time  schools  comes  the  demand  for  a  new 
kind  of  teacher,  trained  in  industry,  trained  in 
sympathy  both  with  children  and  employer.  In 
this  training  of  teachers  and  the  working-out  of 
methods,  wise  volunteers  have  already  greatly 
helped. 

In  1906,  the  Women's  Educational  and  Indus- 
trial Union  of  Boston  opened  a  class  in  salesman- 
ship for  girls.  It  was  an  uphill  road  the  first  year; 
only  six  girls  joined  and  their  training  in  actual 
selling  was  limited  to  the  small  food  salesroom  of 
the  Union  itself.  But  in  1907  six  of  the  leading 
department  stores  of  Boston  agreed  to  lend  their 
help  and  sanction  to  the  plan.  The  superintend- 
ents of  these  six  stores  formed  an  advisory  com- 
mittee for  the  school  and  met  once  a  month  with 
its  director  for  discussion  of  the  common  needs  of 
the  shops  and  the  school. 
70 


TRAINING  FOR  WORK 

Thus  the  school  began  to  realize  and  to  meet 
the  needs  of  the  stores  and  the  stores  to  appre- 
ciate the  value  of  distinctive  and  intelligent 
training  for  their  salesgirls.  More  than  this,  the 
alliance  between  school  and  store  became  a  genu- 
ine friendship  and  guardianship.  The  relation 
between  employees,  customers,  school-teachers, 
and  shop-owners,  a  relation  stiffened  and  strained 
by  the  overwhelming  size  of  modern  commerce, 
was  drawn  back  into  a  personal  human  tie. 

After  a  number  of  experiments  as  to  hours  and 
wages,  the  following  plan  has  been  worked  out: 
The  girls  are  engaged  by  the  stores  as  saleswomen 
and  are  sent  by  the  store  managers  to  the  school 
of  the  Women's  Educational  and  Industrial 
Union.  They  come  to  the  salesmanship  school 
from  8.30  to  11.30  A.M.,  and  spend  the  rest  of  the 
day  at  work.  The  stores  pay  them  full  wages  for 
a  three  months'  course,  deducting  nothing  for  the 
hours  spent  in  school.  The  gain  in  efficiency  seems 
sufficient  to  warrant  not  only  full  pay  for  part- 
time  work,  but  increase  in  pay  as  the  years  go 
on,  relatively  above  that  of  the  untrained  sales- 
woman. 

The  school  course  includes  business  arithme- 
tic. The  truly  practical  question,  "How  much 
would  |  of  a  yard  of  ribbon  cost  at  19  cents  a 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

yard?  "  arouses  puzzled  looks  and  biting  of  pencils 
in  many  a  student,  yet  it  is  the  type  of  problem 
with  which  saleswomen  must  constantly  deal. 
The  students  are  taught  to  spell  technical  or  diffi- 
cult words;  they  study  the  different  textiles  that 
they  will  be  called  on  to  sell;  they  are  given  phys- 
ical training  and  taught  simple  hygiene.  Best 
of  all,  they  have  salesmanship  discussion  based 
on  incidents  noticed  in  the  store,  and  through 
demonstration  sales,  observation,  and  teaching 
they  learn  something  of  the  vagaries  of  that  mul- 
tiple animal  whom  storemen  call  the  "real  boss 
of  the  store/'  —  the  customer.  One  saleswoman 
complained  that  a  customer  of  the  undecided  type 
of  mind  bought  nothing,  though  every  article  of 
the  kind  she  desired  had  been  laid  before  her. 
The  teacher  suggested  that  the  saleswoman 
would  have  been  wiser  to  have  shown  only  a  few 
goods.  The  undecided  customer  feels  the  embar- 
rassment of  too  rich  a  choice  and  goes  away  con- 
fused and  empty  handed.1 

These  classes  in  salesmanship  have  many  inter- 
esting aspects.  They  have  undoubtedly  increased 
the  wages  of  the  girls  employed  as  contrasted 

1  See  Annual  Report  of  the  Women's  Educational  and  Indus- 
trial Union  of  Boston^  and  the  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Board 
of  Education  on  Part-Time  Schooling,  1913. 

72. 


TRAINING  FOR  WORK 

with  those  of  untrained  saleswomen.1  But  the 
lessons  have  done  far  more  than  this.  They  have 
increased  the  interest  of  the  employee  in  her  work 
and  of  the  employer  in  her  welfare;  they  have 
raised  the  ethical  standards  of  buying  and  selling 
and  the  attitude  of  courtesy  and  fairness  to  cus- 
tomers; above  all,  through  these  private  classes 
a  clearer  light  has  been  thrown  on  the  problem  of 
courses  and  teachers  for  part-time  schools.  The 
Women's  Educational  and  Industrial  Union  has 
the  spirit  of  a  true  pioneer.  As  soon  as  the  classes 
for  employees  in  salesmanship  were  successfully 
run,  the  Union  initiated  classes  to  train  teachers. 
The  work  in  salesmanship  requires  a  new  kind  of 
teaching.  How  can  we  get  teachers?  The  Union 
answered  by  making  a  small  beginning.  Fifteen 
teachers,  trained  not  only  in  the  school  of  sales- 
manship, but  by  actual  store  practice  on  Mon- 
days and  during  holiday  seasons,  are  already 
going  out  over  the  country  to  spread  the  knowl- 
edge of  salesmanship.  They  hold  positions  in 
Chicago,  Cincinnati,  Kalamazoo,  and  Hartford, 
as  well  as  in  Boston. 

1  "  Thirty-one  per  cent  received  $6  or  less  before  the  training. 
After  the  training,  only  7  per  cent  received  $6  and  none  received 
less.  Before  training,  only  n.8  per  cent  received  more  than  $8 
a  week;  after  training,  42.7  per  cent  received  more  than  $8  a 
week."  From  the  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Board  of  Educa- 
tion on  Part-Time  Schooling,  1913. 

73 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

Such  an  experiment  as  this  of  the  Women's  Ed- 
ucational and  Industrial  Union  deserves  a  central 
place  in  any  account  of  private  help  to  the  schools. 
The  Union  foresaw  a  need  and  responded  to  it 
before  the  school  authorities  were  ready  or  able 
to  meet  it.  After  six  years'  work  they  have  con- 
vinced the  department  store  manager  of  the  value 
of  such  training,  and  through  their  influence  two 
public  high  schools  in  Boston  have  begun  to  teach 
salesmanship. 

Though  the  Union's  classes  have  necessarily 
been  a  large  expense  each  year  (over  $3000  in 
1911),  the  work  has  not  been  dropped  nor  shirked 
in  any  detail.  The  school  keeps  an  exact  record 
of  the  history  of  each  pupil  before  and  after  her 
entrance  and  makes  an  annual  record  of  her  posi- 
tion and  wages  afterwards.  This  school  in  sales- 
manship is  a  single  example  of  training  for  voca- 
tion that  is  being  given  by  private  associations  in 
a  number  of  cities.  Such  experiments  are  signifi- 
cant. They  prove  the  loyalty  of  our  citizens  to 
education.  They  should  also  prove  an  inesti- 
mable boon  to  public  school  superintendents. 


VI 

TRAINING  FOR  CITIZENSHIP 

Moral  Training 

MORE  and  more  lovers  of  the  public  schools  are 
asking  that  they  give  at  least  the  nucleus  of  train- 
ing for  the  coming  ties  of  civic  and  family  life; 
and  to  train  boys  and  girls  for  their  social  ties  is 
necessarily  to  give  them  moral  training. 

There  are  examples  throughout  the  United 
States  of  the  initiative  of  clear-sighted  and  origi- 
nal public  school-teachers  in  carrying  on  definite 
plans  of  moral  training.  Miss  Jane  Brownlee's 
union  of  lessons  in  morals  with  miniature  school 
citizenship,  worked  out  in  Toledo,  Ohio,  is  well 
known  and  valuable. 

Acting,  too,  has  been  used  in  school  life  for  dis- 
tinctly ethical  purposes.  Mrs.  Lena  D.  Burton, 
with  the  help  of  Miss  Marian  K.  Brown,  a  Bos- 
ton teacher,  wrote  for  pupils  to  act  and  gave  in 
several  schools  a  genuine  little  morality  play. 
The  play,  with  its  naive  list  of  good  and  bad 
characters,  shows  vividly  the  temptations  and 
final  victory  of  "Everychild."  In  South  Dakota 
the  adoption  of  a  special  textbook  for  ethical 

75 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

teaching  was  due  to  the  direct  cooperation  of  the 
superintendent  of  schools  with  the  educational 
association. 

The  contribution  of  ethical  stimulus  coming 
from  outside  the  schools  is  also  large  and  signi- 
ficant. Among  the  earliest  plans  for  moral  train- 
ing in  public  schools  was  that  invented  by  a  clergy- 
man, Mr.  Milton  Fairchild,  then  of  Albany,  New 
York.  He  realized  the  part  of  eyes  as  well  as  ears 
in  receiving  strong  impressions,  and  originated 
the  idea  of  visual  instruction  in  morals.  His  most 
successful  lecture,  illustrating  fair  play  in  sport, 
has  in  many  a  school  held  thousands  of  lads  at- 
tentive and  thoughtful.  Mr.  Fairchild  shows  pic- 
ture after  picture  of  right  or  wrong  conduct  in 
athletic  games,  and  with  each  picture  speaks, 
impersonally,  a  brief  sentence  or  two  which  falls 
into  the  boy's  memory  almost  without  his  being 
aware,  so  absorbed  is  he  in  the  picture  before 
him. 

This  plan  of  using  vivid  pictures  to  instill  and 
record  moral  lessons  is  likely  to  be  fruitful  and 
permanent.  Already  educational  moving  pic- 
tures are  impressing  indelible  lessons  through 
films  such  as  those  of  the  Educational  Depart- 
ment of  the  General  Film  Company.  A  war-time 
story  of  the  struggle  between  love  and  service  to 


TRAINING  FOR  CITIZENSHIP 

the  nation  rouses  patriotism,  the  story  of  Enoch 
Arden  drives  home  honor  to  family  ties,  the  day's 
work  of  a  district  nurse  illustrates  helpfulness. 

Mr.  James  T.  White,  of  New  York,  has  offered 
his  contribution  to  moral  instruction  in  a  plan  of 
character-building  through  biography,  a  plan  in- 
dorsed by  the  Committee  of  the  National  Educa- 
tion Association  appointed  to  study  and  recom- 
mend methods  of  moral  training  in  public  schools. 

Insight  into  Civic  Conditions 

The  City  History  Club  of  New  York  has  been 
in  existence  over  eleven  years  and  estimates  its 
enrollment  of  children  during  that  time  as  15,000. 
It  gives  free  classes  in  civics,  takes  children  on  ex- 
cursions to  study  places  of  historic  importance, 
and  organizes  debates  among  its  members  on 
important  questions  of  the  day.  Better  still,  the 
members  of  the  City  History  Club  go,  in  the 
charge  of  teachers,  to  meetings  of  the  board  of 
aldermen  and  to  see  actual  methods  of  street- 
cleaning  and  the  care  of  public  grounds. 

The  School  City  planned  by  Mr.  Wilson  L.  Gill 
of  Philadelphia  has  been  adopted  by  many  pub- 
lic schools.  All  such  forms  of  Junior  Citizen  Clubs 
and  School  Cities  are  planned  to  give  the  children 
a  genuine  though  minute  knowledge  of  the  mean- 
77 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

ing  of  citizenship  through  a  taste  of  the  experi- 
ence itself.  Little  children  in  the  second  grade 
surprise  you  by  seeming  to  understand  how  to 
organize  (under  Mr.  Gill's  direction)  a  miniature 
city  with  its  mayor,  aldermen,  common  council, 
and  police.  Their  duties,  undertaken  with  the 
teacher's  approval,  are  very  limited,  —  they  pick 
up  papers,  keep  slippery  banana  peels  off  side- 
walks, order  the  overshoes  into  neat  rows,  and 
help  to  subdue  whispering  in  school;  but  the  re- 
sponsibility is  genuine  and  definite,  and  under 
the  right  direction  the  child  comes  to  realize  that 
he  and  the  city  have  ties  and  duties. 

Another  spur  to  good  citizenship  is  given  by 
the  Traveling  Exhibit  of  the  Women's  Municipal 
League  of  Boston.  This  exhibit  easily  occupies 
a  school  hall.  Its  method  might  be  called  the 
"  Contrast  of  Good  and  Evil."  Its  aim  is  to  make 
boys  and  girls  realize  the  value  of,  and  therefore 
help  to  support,  the  city  regulations  for  health 
and  decency.  There  are  shown  side  by  side  a  clean 
and  a  dirty  market.  These  are  of  a  size  to  fit  a 
table  six  feet  long  and  two  and  a  half  wide.  The 
floor  of  the  clean  market  is  neatly  covered  with 
oilcloth.  In  a  tall,  upright  case,  glassed  in,  are 
shown  bread  and  pastry,  and  in  a  low,  horizontal 
case,  also  under  glass,  food  that  is  to  be  eaten 
78 


TRAINING  FOR  CITIZENSHIP 

without  cooking,  —  celery,  candies,  cakes,  and 
berries. 

The  dirty  market  is  a  lurid  contrast  to  the 
clean  one.  Heaven  and  hell  could  not  be  farther 
apart.  A  worn  overcoat  rests  upon  the  table  and 
touches  the  food.  Wilting  salads  and  speckled 
candy  are  exposed,  and  metal  flies  on  stickpins 
cry  out  against  the  evil  state.  Soiled  newspapers 
are  on  hand  for  wrapping-paper.  A  papier-mache 
dog  is  poking  into  the  vegetable  boxes  on  the 
floor. 

In  addition  to  the  clean  and  dirty  market- 
stands,  the  Traveling  Exhibit  shows  models  of 
well-kept  and  of  badly  kept  tenements,  photo- ' 
graphs  of  clean  and  dirty  streets  and  barns;  and 
cases  made  for  keeping  milk  cool  and  clean  at 
small  cost.  There  are  also  photographs  of  classes 
at  work  in  trade  schools  and  charts  showing 
where  such  teaching  is  given. 

The  head-masters  and  teachers  in  the  Boston 
high  and  grammar  schools  welcome  this  exhibit 
and  make  application  to  have  it  placed  in  their 
schools  for  a  week  or  more  at  a  time.  Every  day 
after  the  school  session  the  children  troop  in  to 
hear  talks  about  each  part  of  the  show.  Inter- 
ested teachers  often  have  their  classes  write  com- 
positions on  what  they  have  seen.  Many  children 

79 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

of  foreign-speaking  parents  are  already  buyers  for 
the  family.   One  of  the  older  pupils  writes:  — 

One  day  as  I  was  standing  in  a  small  grocery  store 
a  girl  came  in  and  bought  some  oysterettes.  After  she 
had  gone  out,  as  the  storekeeper  was  putting  the  box 
back  in  its  place  he  dropped  it,  and  the  oysterettes 
were  scattered  all  over  a  very  dirty  floor  where  every 
one  that  came  into  the  store  walked.  He  picked  them 
up,  put  them  into  the  box,  and  I  asked  if  he  could  sell 
the  crackers  now,  and  he  said,  "  Of  course.  What  else 
should  I  do  with  them?"  1  should  n't  care  to  buy  in 
that  store  now,  as  I  should  imagine  that  other  things 
and  uncleanly  things  might  be  done. 

Appointment  by  Merit 

A  different  type  of  training  for  citizenship  is 
carried  on  by  the  Women's  Civil  Service  Reform 
Associations  in  Maryland,  New  York,  and  Mas- 
sachusetts. An  important  part  of  the  work  of 
these  societies  is  to  give  teachers  help  in  training 
children  to  reject  the  spoils  system  in  public  of- 
fice and  to  see  the  value  of  appointment  by  merit. 
Excellent  pamphlets  have  been  written  by  men 
of  the  distinction  of  President  Charles  W.  Eliot 
and  Charles  J.  Bonaparte.  These,  with  other 
articles  simply  written  for  children  of  the  high 
school  and  later  grammar  grades,  are  widely  used 
as  lessons  and  material  for  compositions.  The 
80 


TRAINING  FOR  CITIZENSHIP 

auxiliaries  do  not  confine  their  work  to  schools 
within  their  own  State.  They  answer  requests 
from  every  State  in  the  Union.  One  auxiliary 
alone  distributed  during  its  eleven  years  of  exist- 
ence half  a  million  pamphlets.  One  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  of  these  were  sent  to  grammar 
schools  and  nearly  two  hundred  thousand  to  high 
schools.  In  every  case  the  principal  agreed  to 
make  them  the  subject  of  a  special  lesson.  In  a 
number  of  schools  a  speaking  contest  is  held  at  the 
end  of  the  season,  and  a  bronze  medal  designed 
by  a  pupil  of  Saint-Gaudens  and  bearing  the 
motto,  "The  Best  shall  serve  the  State,"  is  given 
for  the  strongest  paper  in  favor  of  civil  service 
reform. 

It  is  a  moving  sight  to  see  a  boy  of  fourteen 
stand  on  a  platform  before  a  large  audience  of  cit- 
izens and  eloquently  point  out  the  value  of  ap- 
pointment by  merit.  It  is  still  more  significant 
when  an  enthusiastic  teacher,  using  the  pamphlets 
on  civil  service  reform,  spurs  her  class  to  a  zealous 
interest  in  good  government.  I  recall  a  teacher  in 
a  small  city  whose  boys  became  so  animated  over 
right  methods  of  government  that  their  teacher 
let  the  class  appoint  a  committee  of  three  to  study 
commission  government.  Armed  with  questions 
prepared  by  the  class,  the  three  delegates,  pale 
81 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

and  eager,  visited  the  commissioners  of  a  neigh- 
boring city  who  received  them  courteously,  if 
with  a  smile  breaking  the  firm  contour  of  their 
lips.  Back  came  the  boys  ready  to  support  gov- 
ernment by  commission,  and,  what  is  more, 
roused  to  a  genuine  interest  concerning  the  po- 
litical duties  in  which  they  were  soon  to  take 
part. 

From  the  superintendent  of  schools  in  Arkan- 
sas City,  as  from  many  other  cities,  comes  a 
message  such  as  the  following:  — 

We  will  gladly  promise  to  use  the  pamphlets  ac- 
cording to  your  stipulations;  that  is,  make  them  the 
subject  of  study  in  at  least  one  lesson  in  civics  or  his- 
tory. They  will  be  so  helpful  in  our  work  in  civics 
and  history  that  I  feel  we  ought  to  make  a  large  place 
in  our  program  for  a  careful  study  of  them. 

In  the  report  of  the  National  Municipal  League 
for  1907  a  notice  is  given  of  this  work:  — 

In  Massachusetts  the  Women's  Auxiliary  of  the 
Civil  Service  Reform  Association  has  rendered  splen- 
did service  in  the  cause  of  good  government.  It  has 
fairly  deluged  the  state  with  knowledge  of  the  merit 
system  and  built  up  a  powerful  public  opinion  in 
favor  of  clean  and  just  conditions.  It  did  not  enter 
politics  but  helped  to  give  politics  a  moral  basis.  It 
started  its  work  in  the  right  place  in  the  Massachu- 
82 


TRAINING  FOR  CITIZENSHIP 

setts  public  schools  in  building  up  the  good  citizen- 
ship on  which  the  future  of  a  government  by  the  peo- 
ple depends.  That  kind  of  work  is  fundamental  and 
is  peculiarly  the  work  of  women. 

A  Course  in  Citizenship 

In  the  spring  of  1913,  the  schools  of  Roxbury, 
Massachusetts,  and  its  neighborhood  were  star- 
tled by  a  children's  strike  against  the  new  rule  of 
double  school  sessions.  Boys  and  girls  broke  win- 
dows, battered  doors,  howled,  and  made  night 
hideous.  The  revolt  was  soon  quelled,  but  its  sig- 
nificance, as  a  symptom  of  an  age  of  restlessness 
and  lawlessness,  cannot  soon  be  forgotten.  What 
can  be  done  in  the  schools  to  prepare  our  future 
citizens  for  a  life  of  loyalty,  order,  sympathy,  and 
service?  One  answer  has  taken  definite  shape  in 
a  set  of  stories,  poems,  and  suggestions  for  talks 
to  children  called  "A  Course  in  Citizenship," 
planned  by  the  Massachusetts  Branch  of  the 
American  School  Peace  League.  The  aim  of  this 
course  is  to  rouse  and  sustain  in  children  the 
practice  of  good  will. 

For  two  thousand  years  the  words  peace  and 

good  will  have  been  associated  together.   Peace- 

ableness  is  an  elderly,  a  sleepy  kind  of  virtue. 

Good  will  is  the  active  side  of  peace,  and  a  virtue 

83 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

far  more  appealing  to  youth.  The  intent  of  the 
course  in  citizenship  is  to  develop  in  the  lives  of 
children,  from  the  first  grade  to  the  end  of  the 
eighth,  an  enlarging  sympathy  through  service. 
The  first  grades  accent  ties  of  home,  school,  and 
playground,  but  with  the  third  comes  a  wider  ap- 
peal to  good  will  toward  the  neighborhood.  Grad- 
ually, as  the  child's  interests  enlarge  year  by 
year,  ties  to  the  city,  state,  nation,  and  the  world 
are  dwelt  upon.  The  authors  of  this  course  in 
citizenship  hope  that  through  sympathy  and  serv- 
ice to  home,  neighbor,  or  nation  these  great  ties 
will  be  so  honored  and  loved  that  they  cannot 
wantonly  be  hurt. 

This  course  in  citizenship  illustrates  direct  and 
effective  interworking  of  the  school  and  the  pub- 
lic. Suggested  by  the  Massachusetts  Branch  of 
the  School  Peace  League,  prepared  largely  by 
teachers  acting  in  a  private  capacity,  indorsed 
by  superintendents  all  over  the  United  States, 
it  finds  its  way  to  valuable  service  in  the  public 
schools. 


VII 

TRAINING  FOR  FAMILY  TIES 

IT  has  long  been  the  line  of  least  resistance  to  let 
boys  and  girls  grow  up  haphazard  about  their 
future  ties  to  one  another.  This  silence  is  no 
conspiracy,  it  is  just  the  opposite.  It  is  a  lack 
of  thoughtful  and  noble  conspiracy  among  the 
fathers,  mothers,  older  friends,  and  teachers  to 
bring  to  boys  and  girls  the  best  there  is  to 
give  in  solution  of  the  most  difficult  and  en- 
riching problem  in  life.  This  failure  to  untwist 
and  direct  the  ties  of  youth  is  natural  enough.  It 
takes  a  patient  and  a  delicate  hand  to  disentangle 
a  wandering  vine  of  clematis  that  has  wound  itself 
about  a  cedar  instead  of  climbing  up  the  pillar 
prepared  to  hold  it.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  untwin- 
ing one  tendril  only,  but  many,  and  if  you  are  im- 
patient, they  break  and  the  young  leaves  wither. 
A  strand  mingled  of  right  and  wrong  instincts 
holds  back  Americans  from  talk  about  love  and 
religion.  Rightly  men  feel  that  knowledge  of 
facts  is  not  enough.  Rightly  they  feel  that  reli- 
gion and  love  are  hurt  unless  they  are  spoken  of 
from  above  the  level  of  ordinary  living  and  by 

85 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

one  who  knows  whereof  he  speaks.  Certain 
truths  cannot  be  spoken  by  polluted  lips,  and  be- 
cause our  daily  thoughts  are  on  the  level  of  bread, 
butter,  clothes,  and  dollars,  there  seems  to  be 
no  good  time  to  speak  of  sex.  No  good  time,  — 
that's  just  it;  but  it  is  we,  not  the  time,  that  is 
not  good  enough.  On  the  other  hand,  our  drift- 
ing silence  is  often  weakness  rather  than  strength. 
There  is  a  shirking  tendency  in  me  to  shift  the  re- 
sponsibility off  on  you.  Neither  of  us  will  ever  be 
wise  enough  to  speak,  nor  good  enough,  yet  the 
task  must  be  undertaken.  Time  and  youth  wait 
for  no  man.  A  boy  outgrows  his  coat.  The 
sleeves  get  tighter  and  tighter  as  he  grows  longer 
and  larger,  till  something  tears.  Boys  and  girls 
grow  up  day  by  day,  outgrowing  old  feelings  and 
forming  new  ones  in  relation  to  each  other;  the 
special  moment  to  speak  is  not  insistent  till  it  is 
forced  by  a  danger  signal.  Something  tears. 

Sex  Education 

In  the  last  ten  years  the  schools,  feeling  almost 
overwhelmingly  the  need  of  all  resources  in  meet- 
ing this  intricate  problem,  have  called  for  help, 
and  the  lovers  of  youth  in  unofficial  places  have 
suggested  the  best  they  know  (often  pitifully  lit- 
tle, indeed !)  by  way  of  support.  So  tentative  as 
86 


TRAINING  FOR  FAMILY  TIES 

yet  is  this  movement  for  training  of  social  stand- 
ards that  the  available  facts  barely  convey  the 
significance  of  its  depth,  its  range,  its  persistence. 
Ask  yourselves  what,  in  your  own  experience,  it 
has  been  that  kept  you  at  the  best  and  freed  you 
from  temptation  in  personal  relations?  You  will 
find  answers  that  apply  also  to  what  the  public 
schools  and  intelligent  friends  of  the  schools  can 
be  trained  to  give. 

1.  Sufficient  knowledge  to  dispel  false  information 
and  to  impress  the  need  of  moral  steadfastness 
in  difficult  situations. 

2.  The  heightening  of  standards  through  friendship 
with  lovable  people  and  books. 

3.  Practice  under  guidance  in  a  varied  range  of 
common  social  interests. 

The  most  assertive  and  often  the  least  success- 
ful of  the  attempts  to  train  boys  and  girls  for  their 
future  family  life  are  these  of  direct  instruction 
in  what  is  f acilely  and  falsely  called  sex  hygiene. 
Here  and  there,  indeed,  a  skillful,  big-hearted 
man  or  woman,  —  a  doctor,  it  may  be,  or  a  leader 
of  the  Young  Women's  Christian  Association,  — 
clears,  with  the  rain  of  cool,  scientific  fact,  the 
dusty  bypaths  of  unclean  speculation.  Such  help 
is  needed  to  cure  morbidness  of  body  or  mind. 
Straight  facts  turn  aside  crooked  wonderings. 

.87 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

Yet  knowledge  is  but  a  paper  shield  to  with- 
stand the  piercing  sword  of  temptation.  Officers 
in  the  army  warning  their  soldiers  of  the  danger 
to  health  forbid  them  to  drink  from  polluted 
streams.  A  present  thirst  drives  future  sickness 
into  dim  oblivion.  Every  doctor  knows  that  raw 
oysters  may  carry  germs  of  typhoid  fever.  Do 
doctors  eschew  raw  oysters? 

Knowledge  of  sex  issues  must  be  far  more  than 
knowledge;  it  must  be  education,  not  information; 
for  information,  if  it  goes  no  farther,  does  not 
move  to  right  action.  "Let  me  steer  you  along 
these  dangerous  rocks."  So  far  good,  but  you 
must  row  while  I  steer.  If  there  is  no  one  pulling 
hard  at  the  oar,  steering  is  impotent.  Moral  life 
must  be  in  motion  before  we  can  even  help  to 
guide  it.  Therefore,  instinctively  and  wisely, 
playground  leaders,  folk-dancers,  managers  of 
boys'  and  girls'  clubs,  have  roused  and  shared 
enthusiasm  for  games  before  they  began  to  offer 
moral  help.  The  longest  way  round  is  here  the 
shortest  way  home,  for  knocking  at  a  closed  door 
does  not  constitute  admission  to  the  house  of  a 
soul.  The  knowledge  boys  and  girls  need  is  not 
plain  facts  but  illumined  facts.  They  need  two 
things  that  may  be  called  knowledge,  though 
they  include  far  more  than  knowledge.  First, 
88 


TRAINING  FOR  FAMILY  TIES 

like  a  chauffeur  handling  a  powerful  machine, 
they  need  to  know,  "  Round  this  corner  there  is 
a  dangerous  hill,  —  view  obscured,  —  drive  care- 
fully"; and  next  and  far  more  important,  they 
need  to  see  down  a  vista  into  the  nature  of  hu- 
man ties.  Such  vision  can  best  come  through 
intimacy  with  a  wiser  friend. 

Among  the  best  teaching  united  to  friendship 
with  girls  and  boys  I  place  that  of  Miss  Laura 
Garrett,  of  New  York.  She  is  giving  herself 
liberally  to  help  parents,  teachers,  children.  Her 
teaching  has  the  quality  of  geniality,  variety, 
picturesqueness,  and  above  all,  humor,  —  a  qual- 
ity often  forgotten  in  the  earnest  presentation  of 
a  strained  subject.  The  quality  of  humor  is  not 
strained.  In  Denver  the  Mothers'  Congress  ini- 
tiated and  supported  the  work  of  Mrs.  Anna 
Noble  in  teaching  a  group  of  girls  in  the  seventh 
and  eighth  grades.  The  classes  met  by  permis- 
sion of  the  school  committee  in  the  assembly 
room.  Play  and  comradeship  together  evolved 
intimacy.  There  were  days  for  picnics,  basket- 
ball, folk-dancing,  and  talks  on  general  hygiene. 
The  classes  came  to  include  girls  from  twelve  to 
nineteen  years  of  age.  More  and  more  circles  of 
girls  were  formed  to  meet  the  demand.  Inciden- 
tally questions  of  right  and  wrong  in  the  relation 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

of  one  sex  to  the  other  arose.  The  meaning  and 
place  of  conventions  and  the  ideals  of  friendship 
and  family  were  discussed.  After  some  time,  the 
school  board,  seeing  the  value  of  her  work,  gave 
Mrs.  Noble  an  office  in  the  high  school.  Here 
parents  and  daughters  came  to  ask  help,  or 
daughters  brought  a  note  from  their  mothers 
asking  Mrs.  Noble  to  talk  with  them. 

Finally,  in  1913,  the  school  board  adopted  Mrs. 
Noble's  plan.  She  now  works  especially  with 
high  school  girls  helping  them  to  meet  in  the  best 
way,  both  physically  and  mentally,  their  coming 
social  ties.  Mrs.  Noble  centers  her  talks  about 
the  idea  of  service  and  brings  up  the  following 
topics:  — 

Responsibilities  of  a  Girl 

GRADES  NINE  AND  TEN 
Work  — 

The  joy  of  work  well  done.  Good  work  depend- 
ent upon  good  tools.  The  body  the  tool  of  the 
mind  and  spirit.  Physical  hygiene  and  develop- 
ment. 

Inheritance  and  Environment  — 

What  we  are  and  what  we  may  be.    Responsi- 
bility to  the  future  generation.  Building  up  of  de- 
sirable traits.     Elimination  of  undesirable. 
90 


TRAINING  FOR  FAMILY  TIES 

Responsibility  and  Work  — 

(a)  Social — 

Choice  of  friends.  Making  of  social  standards. 
Proper  amusements.  Expense.  Dress.  Chaper- 
onage.  Responsibility  of  the  thoughtful  girl  to  the 
girl  with  false  social  standards. 

(b)  Industrial  — 

Choice  of  vocation.  Dangers  to  girls  in  the  busi- 
ness world.  Responsibility  of  the  girl  in  the  safe 
sheltered  position  to  the  girl  in  danger. 

(c)  Home  — 

The  girPs  relation  to  her  own  home  and  to  the 
home-making  of  the  future. 

GRADES  ELEVEN  AND  TWELVE 

Home-making  and  Child  Study 
The  Home  — 

Economic  standards  of  home-making.  - 
Hygiene  of  the  home. 
Beauty  of  the  home. 

Ideal  mental  and  spiritual  relationships  of  the 
home. 

The  Child  — 

Physical  development.    Proper  clothing,  bath- 
ing, food,  sleep,  exercise,  and  environment. 
Mental  development.   Cultivation  of  the  will. 

The  State  — 

The  home  hygenic,  the  home  beautiful,  the  home 
91 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

moral  in  relation  to  the  life  of  the  community  and 
state. 

The  child  mentally,  morally  and  physically  de- 
veloped, a  unit  in  an  ideal  community  and  state 
life. 

Health  is  always  health  to  do  something  with. 
Even  moral  health,  the  power  to  resist  tempta- 
tion, is  not  to  be  sought  in  lonely  self-cultivation, 
but  for  an  aim,  a  place,  a  person,  a  vision.  Mrs. 
Noble  wisely  adds  to  her  talks  about  hygiene 
that  of  the  choice  of  work  and  the  care  of  little 
children.  We  cannot  hold  steady  against  tempta- 
tion unless  we  are  supported  by  something  we 
love  and  look  up  to.  At  the  root  of  all  her  work 
Mrs.  Noble  places  friendship. 

Supervised  Recreation 

In  the  last  century  medical  school  training 
meant  chiefly  book- work.  Now  it  gains  strength 
by  the  actual  practice  of  medicine  under  direc- 
tion. So  the  best  training  in  social  ties  is  that 
of  practice  under  guidance.  A  number  of  private 
societies  in  different  cities  are  preparing  boys  and 
girls  for  better  ties  of  friendship  and  affection  by 
bringing  groups  of  them  together  in  the  school 
buildings,  under  careful  supervision,  for  choral 
singing,  theatricals,  dancing  and  other  games. 
92 


TRAINING  FOR  FAMILY  TIES 

Boys  and  girls  just  out  of  school  or  at  part- 
time  work  are  hungry  for  society,  so  hungry 
that,  like  most  of  us,  if  they  can't  get  the  best, 
they  will  seize  the  less  good.  In  one  large  school- 
house,  whose  use  is  granted  by  the  school  com- 
mittee, the  private  society  which  runs  the  dances 
issues  an  attractive  red -lettered  program  of 
dances,  thus:  — 

Abraham  Lincoln  School. 

Supervised  Public  Dances. 

Every  Saturday  Evening. 

Waltz. 

Two  Step. 

Schottische. 

Dancing  Regulations. 

The  management  reserves  the  right  to  stop 
any  improper  dancing.  The  position  known  as 
the  waltz  position  shall  be  observed.  The  tur- 
key trot,  or  one  step,  will  not  be  permitted. 

An  important  though  indirect  way  of  training 
for  ties  of  friendship  is  that  of  giving  boys  and 
girls  keen  interests  and  resources  in  common.  In 
Boston  an  experiment  in  social  training,  wholly 
initiated  and  run  by  a  private  association,  was 
after  a  year's  trial  adopted  by  the  city  schools. 
In  October,  1911,  the  Committee  on  the  Extended 
Use  of  School  Buildings  of  the  Women's  Munici- 

93 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

pal  League  of  Boston  opened  a  social  center  in 
the  East  Boston  High  School.  The  school  board 
gave  the  use  of  the  building,  heating  and  light, 
the  committee  paid  the  janitor's  fee  and  all  other 
expenses.  The  League's  committee  looked  all 
over  the  country  for  a  director  with  the  right  so- 
cial ideals  and  training  for  just  this  work.  The 
condition  was  made  that  the  director  should  live 
near  the  High  School  and  learn  to  know  the  neigh- 
borhood intimately  before  the  center  opened. 
During  the  summer  the  director  made  inquiries 
about  the  musical  talent  of  the  neighborhood,  and 
when  the  social  center  opened  in  the  autumn,  he 
was  able  to  secure  members  for  several  strong 
musical  clubs.  Two  glee  clubs  were  formed,  — 
one  of  young  women  and  one  of  young  men,  with 
a  membership  of  about  forty  each;  two  orches- 
tras, —  one  for  beginners  and  one  advanced 
enough  to  give  entertainments;  a  drum  corps  of 
lads  from  fourteen  to  sixteen  years  old,  and  a 
brass  band  of  eighteen  instruments.  The  initia- 
tive of  the  muscial  clubs  was  felt  in  every  part  of 
the  social  center.  They  formed  a  natural  nucleus 
organized  at  the  outset.  During  the  autumn  a 
girls'  folk-dancing  class  of  seventy  with  a  trained 
teacher,  a  young  men's  athletic  club,  and  two 
dramatic  clubs  were  organized.  The  girls  were 

94 


TRAINING  FOR  FAMILY  TIES 

given  classes  in  plain  and  decorative  sewing,  and 
thirty  of  the  younger  girls  were  taught  games, 
stories  and  songs,  paper-cutting,  brass- work,  and 
hammock  -  making,  such  as  they  might  use  in 
playground  instruction  or  in  vacation  schools. 

All  the  members  thought  of  these  clubs  as  their 
own;  they  contributed  weekly  dues;  they  paid  by 
installment  for  the  musical  instruments  and  the 
sewing  material.  The  spirit  was  not  that  of 
classes,  but  of  clubs,  —  clubs  each  with  a  respon- 
sible president  and  treasurer,  a  constitution  and 
rules.  Not  at  first,  but  after  the  leaders  had  cre- 
ated social  standards,  the  young  men  and  women 
were  brought  together  through  a  series  of  dances. 
These  were  well  managed  by  an  alert  committee 
of  club  members.  All  who  saw  the  large  gymna- 
sium full  of  happy  and  orderly  young  men  and 
women  must  have  felt  the  value  of  opening  school- 
houses  in  the  evening  with  clubs  under  trained 
leaders.  In  many  neighborhoods  there  is  no  other 
meeting-place  but  the  street  or  the  public  dance- 
halls.  One  young  man  told  the  Committee  on  the 
Extended  Use  of  School  Buildings  that  these 
dances  gave  him  the  only  opportunity  he  had  had 
since  leaving  school  to  make  the  right  kind  of 
friends. 

The  East  Boston  Center  proved  so  successful 

95 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

that  the  school  committee  adopted  both  its  policy 
and  its  director  and  maintains  four  of  a  similar 
character  in  different  parts  of  the  city. 

It  is  significant  that  in  this  case  (as  in  a  num- 
ber of  others  in  Chicago  and  New  York)  the  work 
of  the  private  association  did  not  end  with  the 
adoption  of  its  evening  center  by  the  city.  The 
school  committee  at  once  asked  the  members  of 
the  Municipal  League's  Committee  on  the  Ex- 
tended Use  of  School  Buildings  to  become  an  ad- 
visory committee  on  evening  centers.  It  asked 
the  League  to  keep  definitely  in  touch  with  each 
center,  suggest  any  improvements  they  found  de- 
sirable, and  rouse  the  active  support  of  the  neigh- 
borhood. The  League  accepted  this  responsibil- 
ity, secured  a  woman  of  generous,  sympathetic 
nature  to  interest  the  neighborhood  in  the  suc- 
cess of  its  own  center  and  gave  the  services  of 
two  placement  secretaries  to  talk  with  boys  and 
girls  already  at  work  who  came  to  the  center  for 
recreation  and  advice. 

The  Choice  of  Books 

In  one  of  O.  Henry's  short  stories  there  is  a 
touching  sketch  of  an  underpaid  salesgirl,  living 
alone  in  a  sordid  hall  bedroom  with  a  single  treas- 
ure in  it,  —  a  flaring  picture  of  Lord  Kitchener 


TRAINING  FOR  FAMILY  TIES 

in  full  regimentals.  Temptation  in  the  shape  of 
an  alluring  invitation  to  fun,  food  and  dancing 
assails  her,  but  she  takes  a  look  at  Lord  Kitch- 
ener, and  the  glory  of  the  hero  whom  she  barely 
knows,  but  adores  for  his  looks  and  deeds,  holds 
her  steady.  The  hope  that  art  and  literature  of 
the  kind  to  nourish  a  simple  hungry  soul  may  re- 
vive and  sustain  ideals  has  been  a  spur  to  many 
a  helper  of  the  public  school.  Throughout  the 
country  librarians  are  quietly,  persistently,  and 
devotedly  suggesting  the  reading  of  books  that 
give  ideals  of  friendship.  Librarians  and  their 
assistants  realize  daily  what  good  and  bad  choices 
in  children's  reading  may  involve.  In  the  Chil- 
dren's Room  of  a  library  situated  in  one  of  the 
roughest  districts  of  a  large  city  is  a  far-seeing 
librarian.  Her  soul  is  on  fire  to  give  the  children 
who  visit  her  room  the  kind  of  story  and  novel 
that  will  give  true  and  loyal  standards  of  love 
and  friendship.  She  does  not  think  her  duty 
ended  with  stamping  the  date  on  a  card.  She  is 
constantly  talking  with  the  boys  and  girls  about 
the  books  they  read,  why  they  choose  them,  what 
they  get  from  them.  She  is  hungry  to  find  more 
books  that  will  open  up,  through  biography  or 
romance,  the  right  kind  of  human  ties. 
The  experiment  has  been  tried  by  a  worker 
97 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

in  the  Boston  Children's  Aid  Society  of  a  course 
in  novels.  She  takes  interesting  novels  that  give 
opportunity  for  a  discussion  of  the  ties  between 
men  and  women  and  talks  them  over  with  a  small 
group  of  girls.  Her  experience  leads  her  to  believe 
that  this  method  is  one  of  real  value.  Biography, 
too,  is  a  largely  un tilled  field  in  which  lie  the  seeds 
of  human  experience  in  love  and  marriage.  For 
those  who  do  not  easily  read,  story-telling  and  the 
vivid  scenes  of  the  educational  pictures  of  the  bi- 
ograph  give  an  excellent  chance  to  bring  future 
experience  home.  We  are  not  yet  using  the  re- 
sources of  modern  invention  for  the  greatest  edu- 
cational ends,  but  these  resources  lie  open  to  the 
genius  who  will  see  and  command  their  uses  in 
moral  training.  Will  not  some  one  take  a  few  of 
the  moving  dramas  of  self-control,  loyalty,  devo- 
tion between  men  and  women,  and  make  them 
available  to  impress  standards  of  reverence,  honor, 
and  constancy  on  the  lives  of  our  boys  and  girls? 

Indirect  Training  for  Social  Responsibility 
The  examples  given  above  suggest  a  few  of  the 
varied  ways  in  which  volunteers  are  trying  to 
back  the  schools  in  their  efforts  to  train  and  de- 
velop true  relations  between  boys  and  girls.  The 
greatest  hope  in  this  training  for  family  ties 
98 


TRAINING  FOR  FAMILY  TIES 

springs  out  of  the  eagerness,  thoughtfulness,  and 
wide  variety  of  the  people  who  now  are  looking 
the  problem  in  the  face  instead  of  staring  at  its 
back.  We  find  associations  of  many  kinds  each 
doing  its  part,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  solve  this 
problem.  Home  and  school  associations  bring 
parents  and  teachers  together  in  social  meetings. 
The  talks  about  children's  health  or  work  lead 
naturally  and  in  many  cases  effectively  to  the  dis- 
cussion of  more  subtle  problems.  Young  Men's 
and  Young  Women's  Christian  Associations 
bring  to  bear  the  purifying  forces  of  their  reli- 
gious zeal.  Social  settlements  constantly  use 
their  games  and  clubs  for  deeper  intimacy,  and, 
through  parents,  older  brothers  and  sisters,  or 
through  the  children  themselves,  reinforce  the 
public  schools. 

More  and  more  wise  men  and  women  see  that 
discussion  of  disease  or  fear  of  consequences  is  an 
antiseptic  treatment  that  may  kill  healthy  tissues 
along  with  the  diseased.  It  is  aseptic  treatment, 
purification  of  the  soul  as  by  fire  and  water, 
through  work,  through  athletics,  through  friend- 
ship, through  loyalty  to  family  ties,  through  ab- 
sorbing ideals,  that  is  the  mainstay  of  the  schools 
themselves  and  of  those  who  try  to  help  them. 
These  are  the  temptations  to  right  doing  whose 
99 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

music  deafens  to  the  siren  lure  of  wrong.  And 
therefore,  when  we  trace  back  to  its  roots  the  un- 
flagging zeal  of  a  volunteer  playground  leader,  we 
find  his  faith  that  through  the  opening  of  play 
the  secrets  of  boy  hearts  will  be  revealed.  To  each 
boy  he  gives  the  deeper  secret  of  a  man's  experi- 
ence of  life. 

The  classes  in  salesmanship,  carried  on  by  the 
Women's  Educational  and  Industrial  Union  of 
Boston,  are  primarily  a  training  for  work  in  de- 
partment stores,  but  ask  the  eager  director  if 
that  is  the  center  of  her  interest.  "No,  indeed. 
What  we  do  trains  the  girl  for  all  her  future  life. 
Questions  of  right  and  wrong,  questions  of  good 
manners,  questions  of  habit,  are  constantly  aris- 
ing and  we  have  a  chance  to  talk  them  out  with 
the  girls.  You  would  be  surprised  to  hear  how 
often  they  say,  in  response  to  some  suggestion  of 
improvement,  'Why,  yes,  that's  right!  I  never 
thought  of  it  before.'" 

The  home  and  school  visitor,  engaged  by  the 
Public  Education  Association  of  a  large  city,  finds 
the  teacher  troubled  about  an  unmanageable  girl 
of  fifteen.  She  is  beginning  to  run  away  in  the 
evening  and  stay  away  from  home  till  late  at  night. 
One  evening  about  eleven  o'clock,  she  is  seen 
crouching  at  the  top  of  a  high  fire-escape.  Th£ 
100 


TRAINING  FOR  FAMILY  TIES 

school  visitor  lures  her  down,  wins  her  confidence, 
and  finds  that  the  cause  of  her  wild  flight  is  dread 
of  being  whipped  by  her  Italian  stepfather.  Talks 
with  the  parents  and  the  older  sister,  a  growing 
friendship  with  the  girl  herself,  may  well  save  her 
from  dangerous  practices  and  lead  her  back  to 
safety.  In  the  hope  of  those  volunteers  who 
guide  and  pay  for  home  and  school  visitors  the 
part  of  friendship  in  strengthening  character 
and  preparing  it  to  meet  its  coming  ties  is  deep, 
strong  and  central. 

The  Hawthorne  Club  of  Boston  offered  in  1913 
a  prize  for  the  best  answers  to  a  series  of  questions 
on  good  and  bad  recreation.  Teachers  in  the  pub- 
lic schools  encouraged  their  pupils  to  answer 
these  questions,  and  the  result  was  a  bulky  pack- 
age of  several  hundred  papers  expressing,  im- 
maturely,  of  course,  but  with  thoughtfulness  and 
common  sense,  the  ideals  of  boys  and  girls  about 
social  ties  and  pleasures.  They  wanted  fun,  they 
believed  in  dances,  but  at  public  dances  you 
"heard  bad  things  said";  you  were  thrown  with 
people  you  could  not  trust.  The  girls  definitely 
suggested  good  dance-halls  where  there  were 
matrons  and  no  drinking.  They  distinguished 
the  right  kind  of  moving-picture  show  from  the 
wrong. 

101 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

To  write  spontaneously  on  any  subject  plants 
one's  ideas  with  stronger  roots.  As,  among  the 
judges,  I  read  the  papers  of  this  group,  I  felt,  de- 
spite a  burst  here  and  there  of  marvelous  "high- 
falutin"  language  designed  to  win  the  prize,  that 
moral  thoughtfulness  about  recreation  was  being 
both  expressed  and  impressed. 

In  Wisconsin,  Professor  Frank  C.  Sharp,  of  the 
State  University,  has  started  classes  for  ethical 
discussion  in  a  number  of  the  high  schools  of 
the  State.  Through  these  discussions  training  in 
logical  thinking  is  gained.  But  something  more 
intimate  than  logic  springs  up  when  we  discuss  the 
sources  of  lasting  happiness  and  the  conditions  of 
true  friendship. 

People  speak  sweepingly  of  our  age  as  a  time 
of  commercialism.  It  doubtless  has  this  phase 
among  many  others,  but  there  are  deep  springs  of 
human  hope  and  will  that  no  drought  of  cynicism 
or  commercialism  can  dry.  Through  blighting 
days  they  leap  with  unquenchable  power.  With 
an  ancient  evil  springs  an  eternal  conscience.  The 
perpetual  desire  of  good  men  and  women  is  to  sus- 
tain and  strengthen  the  ties  of  family  life.  It  is 
only  within  the  last  years  that  this  desire  has  ex- 
pressed itself  in  efforts  to  help  the  public  schools. 

102 


TRAINING  FOR  FAMILY  TIES 

Mistakes  will  be  made,  but,  carefully  watched, 
these  very  mistakes  will  be  of  significance,  and, 
carefully  guided,  the  movement,  seen  as  a  whole, 
cannot  but  accomplish  good. 


VIII 

NEW  DEMANDS  ON  THE  SCHOOLS 

As  the  array  of  offerings  from  the  private  citizen 
to  the  school  is  spread  before  him,  the  superin- 
tendent may  respond,  "All  this  have  I  done."  It 
is  probably  true  that  somewhere  in  the  United 
States  the  schools  are  already  carrying  on  some- 
thing of  all  the  experiments  initiated  in  other 
towns  by  private  associations.  In  the  City  of 
New  Idea,  Mr.  Swift  Progress  has  of  his  own  ac- 
cord started  recreation  centers,  placement  bu- 
reaus, open-air  rooms,  but  it  is  equally  true  that 
in  Wayback  Center,  the  superintendent,  Mr. 
Move  Slowly,  would  never  have  accomplished 
anything  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  Coming  Era 
Club  under  the  presidency  of  Mrs.  Urgent.  We 
cannot  cleave  a  sharp  line  between  what  the 
schools  themselves  are  doing  and  what  private 
associations  and  individuals  are  doing  for  the 
schools.  That  we  cannot  is  itself  significant.  It 
means  that  what  outsiders  are  offering  to  the 
schools  is,  on  the  whole,  of  such  value  that  it 
has  already  taken  root  in  one  or  more  progressive 
104 


NEW  DEMANDS  ON  THE  SCHOOLS 

schools.   What  was  once  a  "fad"  has  become  a 
"feature." 

In  her  Helping  School  Children,1  Miss  Denison 
gives  a  striking  list  of  activities  begun  in  social  set- 
tlements and  now  taken  over  by  many  schools:  — 

/.  Settlement  II.  School 

Study  rooms.  Study-recreation  rooms. 
Clubs,  civic,  social,  educational.      Clubs,  civic,  social,  educational. 

Entertainments.  Social  center  parties. 

Kindergartens.  Public  kindergartens. 

Athletics.  Public  school  athletic  leagues. 

Relief.  School  relief  associations. 

Clinics.  Medical  and  dental  inspection. 

Visiting  nurses.  School  nurses. 

Music.  School  orchestras. 

Gardens.  School  gardens. 

Playgrounds.  School  playgrounds. 

Home  visitors.  Visiting  teachers. 

Vacation  schools.  Vacation  schools. 

Night  schools.  Night  schools. 

Open-air  classes.  Open-air  classes. 

This  list  is  important  because  it  marks  the  suc- 
cess of  many  a  pioneer  effort  of  private  associa- 
tions to  further  the  ideals  of  the  schools.  Here  is  a 
rich  harvest.  We  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
the  contribution  of  the  next  fifty  years  will  be  in 
any  way  less.  Properly  cultivated  and  fertilized 
by  encouragement  from  the  schools,  it  is  likely  to 
be  far  larger.  That  the  school  authorities  need 
to  cultivate,  prune,  train,  and  enjoy  the  fruits  of 
bounteous  private  gifts  is  my  central  thesis.  As 

1  Page  16. 
105 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

we  face  the  school  situation,  such  a  conclusion 
seems  necessary. 

Two  salient  facts  jut  out  in  public  school  edu- 
cation at  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century. 

1.  That  the  so-called  social  activities  of  the  school 
—  movements  for  health,  vocation,  recreation, 
morals,  citizenship  —  are  making  new  demands 
on  the  strength  of  the  teachers  and  the  financial 
resources  of  the  city. 

2.  That  it  is  precisely  in  movements  such  as  these 
that  the  wide-awake  public  is  interested  and 
ready  to  spend  money  and  strength. 

Put  these  two  facts  together  and  the  moral  is 
almost  inevitable.  We  must  train  the  interested 
public  to  give  its  money  and  its  strength  wisely. 

Schools  as  Centers  of  Great  Expectations 

That  the  most  progressive  teachers  and  the 
city  finances  are  overworked  by  the  new  demands 
on  them,  few  people  will  doubt.  The  tidal  wave 
of  social  service  in  the  schools  has  come  so  fast 
that  it  has  swept  away  all  standards  of  regular 
hours  and  of  old-time  expenditure  for  schools. 
"Oh,  yes,  we  give  three  evenings  a  week  to  voca- 
tional guidance  now,"  said  cheerfully  a  city  prin* 
cipal.  "No  teacher  expects  to  have  his  evenings 
free  any  longer."  The  demand  on  the  financial 
106 


NEW   DEMANDS  ON  THE  SCHOOLS 

resources  of  poorer  towns  and  cities  is  more  and 
more  being  felt.  In  a  number  of  instances,  the 
State,  following  the  lead  of  Massachusetts,  is  be- 
ing called  on  to  bear  half  the  maintenance  of  ap- 
proved vocational  schools,  but  even  with  this  aid, 
those  towns  that  are  rich  in  children  and  poor  in 
property  are  feeling  the  strain  of  the  new  work. 
Some  adjustment  must  be  made,  for  the  call 
for  supervision  by  the  schools  of  health,  social 
life,  play,  vocational  guidance  and  placement,  is 
growing,  not  declining. 

In  February,  1909,  I  heard  Mr.  Henry  Thurs- 
ton,  first  probation  officer  of  the  juvenile  court  in 
Chicago,  plead  eloquently  that  the  school  should 
be  the  single  authority  in  all  social  projects  for 
children.  Teachers,  he  said,  know  the  conditions 
of  juvenile  crime  and  truancy.  They  should  have 
charge  of  playgrounds.  They  must  organize  and 
carry  on  evening  recreation  centers.  It  is  they 
who  should  give  out  licenses  for  newsboys  and 
issue  age  certificates  which  will  allow  children  to 
enter  factories. 

During  the  same  month  I  heard  Mr.  Gustave 
Straubenmiiller,  of  New  York,  and  Mr.  Edward 
Ward,  then  of  Rochester,  speak  of  the  extended 
use  of  school  buildings.  They  assured  us  that  the 
school  must  no  longer  be  open  only  by  day,  — 
107 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

that  it  must  reach  out  to  help  graduates  and  to 
give  parents  a  place  to  talk  over  all  that  they 
want  to  talk  about.  Mr.  Straubenmuller  showed 
us  a  hundred  lantern  slides  illustrating  the  use  of 
the  schools  for  all.  We  saw  babies  in  swings  and 
old  men  reading  newspapers.  We  saw  games  of 
tennis  and  lessons  in  cooking.  Everywhere  the 
same  ideal  was  insisted  upon,  —  that  our  schools 
should  serve  all  the  people  all  the  time,  summer 
and  winter,  day  and  evening. 

Early  in  March  a  new  impetus  from  the  edu- 
cation current  came  to  me,  through  a  speech  be- 
fore the  Harvard  Teachers'  Association,  by  Mr. 
Henry  Holmes,  instructor  in  pedagogy.  His  sub- 
ject was  "Educational  Progress  in  1908,"  and 
so  much  progress  had  he  found  that  it  required 
fourteen  thousand  words  to  express  it  in  con- 
densed form. 

He  assured  us  that  the  best  schools  are  under- 
taking to  look  after  the  health  of  all  children. 
Teachers  are  learning  how  to  test  eyes  and  ears. 
School  nurses  are  driving  out  contagious  diseases. 
In  some  schools  a  dentist's  chair  is  permanently 
established.  Following  abreast  of  the  great 
march  toward  health,  Boston  and  Providence 
have  supplied  an  open-air  school  for  tubercular 
and  delicate  children.  Beginnings  are  seen  of  an 
108 


NEW  DEMANDS  ON   THE  SCHOOLS 

exodus  of  city  schools  toward  the  parks.  Schools 
in  hospitals  and  schools  in  the  juvenile  court  are 
no  longer  dreams. 

Not  only  health,  but  art  and  training  for  work 
are  becoming  a  part  of  school.  We  are  coming  to 
appreciate  the  value  of  the  dramatic  instinct  in 
children.  President  Eliot  prophesies  that  all  our 
public  schools  will,  before  many  years,  train  their 
classes  to  express  themselves  through  acting. 

Most  important  of  all,  in  its  school  outlook,  is 
the  new  movement  for  vocational  guidance.  The 
time  is  coming  when  the  teacher  will  not  say 
good-bye  to  his  pupils  when  at  fourteen  they  leave 
the  school.  He  will  follow  his  graduates;  equip 
them  for  and  assist  them  toward  useful  work. 

Mr.  Holmes's  report  of  educational  progress 
was  made  five  years  ago.  Since  that  time  the 
continuation  school  movement,  including  the 
supervision  of  all  children  until  they  are  sixteen 
or  seventeen,  has  become  possible  through  state 
laws  in  Ohio  and  Massachusetts;  the  actual 
placement  of  children  in  employment  has  begun 
under  close  connection  with  the  school  authori- 
ties in  Cincinnati,  Chicago,  and  Boston,  and  the 
movement  in  favor  of  direct  training  for  citizen- 
ship is  rapidly  spreading.  Not  one  of  the  so- 
called  " modern  fads'1  has  been  dropped;  indeed, 
109 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

round  the  roots  of  the  kindergarten  has  grown  up  a 
small,  energetic  sprout  of  the  Montessori  method. 
The  public  school-teacher  has  become  the  cen- 
ter of  great  expectations  in  the  community.  She 
is  expected  to  be  the  creator  and  guardian  of 
health,  morals,  intelligence,  and  efficiency  in  the 
rising  generation.  But  experience  shows  that  no 
one  can  succeed  alone  in  such  an  all-embracing 
task.  The  greatest  general  fails  without  an  army ; 
the  most  brilliant  surgeon  cannot  run  a  hospi- 
tal without  cooks,  nurses,  ward-tenders,  assistant 
physicians.  Public  school-teachers,  facing  both 
technical  and  human  problems,  need  the  experi- 
ence and  the  aid  of  the  intelligent  public  and  of 
the  expert.  They  need  the  dentist  as  they  meet 
the  question  of  decaying  teeth;  they  need  the  wise 
mother  as  they  try  to  adjust  school  lessons  to 
adolescence;  they  need  the  experienced  business 
man  as  they  undertake  to  guide  graduating  pupils 
into  some  fitting  work.  And  by  a  miracle  of  inter- 
play, here  at  the  needed  moment  are  a  number  of 
doctors,  lawyers,  industrial  chiefs  ready  to  take 
hold  and  help.  The  interplay  is  not  accidental,  it 
is  a  miracle  of  response, — the  magic  of  love  meet- 
ing love.  Suddenly,  as  the  school  has  seen  its 
need  of  the  community,  the  community  has  seen 
its  need  of  serving  the  school. 


IX 

THE  SPHERE  OF  VOLUNTEER  HELP 

ANY  such  account  of  demand  in  the  school  and 
supply  to  the  school,  as  has  been  brought  to- 
gether here,  gets  meaning  only  as  we  ask  and 
answer  the  searching  Tolstoyan  question,  "What 
must  we  do,  then?" 

It  is  my  belief  that  all  heads  of  public  schools 
should  adopt  a  definite  policy  of  understanding, 
sifting,  encouraging,  and  finally  training  vol- 
unteer help  to  the  schools.  Every  town  has  its 
woman's  club,  its  churches,  its  library,  its  guilds; 
probably  its  board  of  trade;  surely,  its  public- 
spirited  doctor,  farmer,  or  tradesman,  and  many 
a  mother  with  a  sheaf  of  garnered  experience  to 
offer. 

Every  school  principal,  in  these  days  of  extra 
classroom  activities,  needs  volunteer  helpers,  or, 
better  still,  expert  helpers  whose  salaries  are 
given  by  a  lay  association.  The  principal  needs  a 
home  and  school  visitor  to  see  the  parents,  who 
cannot  easily  get  to  school.  He  can  gain  by  hav- 
ing a  playground  leader  and  some  one  who  sings 
well  to  help  in  his  choral  classes.  He  will  be  greatly 
in 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

helped  by  advice  from  an  architect  about  the 
new  schoolhouse  or  by  a  business  man  about  bids 
for  coal.  He  will  hardly  be  able  to  afford  to  open 
the  school  buildings  for  evening  recreation  un- 
less he  has  help  from  mothers  willing  to  chaperon 
the  girls  and  from  volunteer  athletic  or  dramatic 
leaders.  He  cannot  give  the  time  necessary  to 
find  out  about  different  factories  and  stores  in  the 
neighborhood.  He  needs  a  trained  worker  to  help 
him  in  advising  his  boys  and  girls  about  their 
future  work. 

Part  of  the  help  he  needs  will  be  expert  serv- 
ice, the  salary  for  which  may  well  be  contrib- 
uted by  a  woman's  club  or  by  the  chamber  of 
commerce.  Much  of  it  will  be  help  from  trained 
amateurs,  for  the  trained  amateur  has  come  to 
stay  in  the  field  of  school  work.  The  amateur, 
rightly  counseled,  is  of  permanent  help.  He,  or 
more  commonly  she,  has  leisure,  has  a  fresh  point 
of  view,  is  untrammeled  by  tradition,  has  loose- 
tied  purse-strings,  has  often  irritating  energy  of 
persistence,  has  many  fingers  to  put  in  the  school 
pie.  The  amateur  is  a  thorn  in  the  flesh  to  the 
sleepy  superintendent  whose  cry  is  the  drone  of 
* '  lass  mich  schlaf  en. ' '  The  amateur  is  a  mule  team 
on  a  sandy  road  to  the  progressive  superintendent. 
She  drags  his  store  of  ideas  to  their  destined  scene 

112 


THE  SPHERE  OF  VOLUNTEER  HELP 

of  action.  In  moments  of  despair  she  is  a  magic 
wand.  From  dark  caves,  unknown  to  him,  she 
brings  forth  pots  of  gold,  and  his  eyes  sparkle  as 
he  knows  that  he  can  now  fulfill  his  cherished 
dream. 

The  power  to  use  amateur  help  well  is  a  sign  of 
the  wisdom  and  skill  of  a  modern  superintend- 
ent as  it  is  of  a  charity  expert  who  is  training  vol- 
unteers. The  teacher  must  take  a  definite  atti- 
tude toward  the  volunteer  help  pouring  into  the 
schools.  Genially  he  must  both  take  down  and 
uplift  the  soaring  volunteer.  He  must  show  the 
enthusiast  for  a  single  reform  how  small  a  part 
it  necessarily  is  of  the  whole  school  system  and 
how  much  good  it  can  do  if  wisely  and  proportion- 
ately worked  out.  Volunteers  cannot  be  treated, 
as  they  often  have  been,  like  a  swarm  of  gnats, 
noisy,  irritating,  quickly  to  be  brushed  away. 
The  superintendent  must  choose  and  develop  the 
best  forms  of  cooperation  between  the  lay  man 
or  woman  and  the  schools. 

What,  then,  is  the  rightful  sphere  of  private 
helpfulness? 

i.  To  initiate  and  support  new  experiments  in 
education  is  one  of  the  best  ways  in  which  out- 
siders can  help  the  schools.  Kindergartens,  va- 
cation schools,  social  centers  illustrate  this  well. 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

Mrs.  Quincy  Shaw  maintained  kindergartens  in 
Boston  until  their  value  for  the  public  schools  was 
proved  and  a  supply  of  good  teachers  trained. 
Vacation  schools  were  held  by  settlements,  civic 
leagues,  and  similar  associations  until  the  city 
saw  their  value.  As  yet  the  placement  bureau  is 
not  recognized  as  a  necessary  part  of  the  school. 
It  is  well,  therefore,  that  in  Chicago  the  expense 
is  borne  by  private  societies  while  the  work  is 
directly  under  the  supervision  of  the  school  com- 
mittee. 

2.  Private  citizens,  or  groups  who  are  masters 
within  a  special  field,  ought  to  give  expert 
service  to  the  schools.  In  the  Normal  School  at 
Fitchburg,  Massachusetts,  the  training  of  stu- 
dents to  appreciate  good  music  has  been  one  of 
the  aims  of  the  principal.  This  interest  in  music 
has  drawn  the  city  and  the  school  together.  The 
Kneisel  Quartette  has  come  to  play  at  the  school, 
support  from  the  townspeople  carrying  part  of 
the  expense.  In  many  cases  associations  for  nurs- 
ing have  contributed  the  first  school  nurse,  giv- 
ing freely  her  expert  service.  This  has  been  the 
case  in  Harrisburg,  Pennsylvania;  in  Denver, 
Colorado;  in  Reading,  Pennsylvania;  and  in  Mid- 
dletown,  Connecticut. 

The  expert  business  man  interested  in  schools 
114 


THE  SPHERE  OF  VOLUNTEER  HELP 

can  in  these  days  be  of  value  in  suggesting  and  di- 
recting lines  of  industrial  training.  He  knows,  as 
the  school  man  cannot,  the  kind  of  work  that  a 
business  man  wants  from  his  boys  and  girls,  the 
occupations  that  are  open  and  those  already  over- 
crowded. For  years  high  schools  have  gone  on 
training  an  over -supply  of  stenographers  and 
clerks.  The  closer  link  between  school  and  shop 
is  bringing  out  the  value  of  fitting  round  pegs 
into  round  holes,  instead  of  forcing  square  pegs 
into  no  holes  at  all.  In  Kearney,  New  Jersey,  the 
superintendent  writes:  — 

Last  year  the  leading  manufacturing  concerns 
were  asked  to  criticize  the  product  of  our  schools  and 
to  make  suggestions  how  to  remedy  any  faults  or  de- 
fects in  our  teaching.  These  letters  brought  startling 
replies.  The  manufacturers  were  unanimous  in  their 
opinion  that  the  school  work  in  the  "three  Rs"  was 
not  thorough  and  adequate.  Through  this  valuable 
criticism,  placed  before  our  principals  as  a  cabinet, 
we  formulated  entirely  new  plans,  which  have  resulted 
in  most  gratifying  improvements.1 

3.  Even  more  important  than  the  help  given 

by  experts  in  a  special  field  is  the  close  affiliation 

of  the  schools  with  a  strong  sensible  organization 

like  the  educational  department  of  a  board  of 

1  Elsa  Denison,  Helping  School ^Children,  p.  304. , 

us 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

trade  or  a  woman's  club.  This  alliance,  developed 
and  guided  by  a  wise  teacher,  may  double  his 
power.  In  our  large  cities  such  associations  are 
growing  stronger  and  becoming  more  definite  in 
purpose.  They  are  welcomed  by  far-seeing  su- 
perintendents and  teachers.  Parent  and  teacher 
associations  taking  root,  now  feebly,  now  vigor- 
ously, are  recognized  as  allies  to  the  public  schools. 

In  New  York  the  Public  Education  Association 
has  worked  actively  for  recreation  centers,  for 
teachers'  resting  -  rooms,  for  sufficient  kinder- 
gartens, for  vocational  training  and  guidance,  for 
playgrounds,  for  development  of  interest  in  pic- 
tures and  natural  history,  for  visiting  ^teachers, 
for  school  lunches.  Back  of  all  its  work  has  been 
the  purpose  to  study  and  to  understand  the  school 
system. 

In  Cincinnati  the  women's  clubs  and  other  pri- 
vate associations  work  intimately  with  the  public 
schools  and  with  the  State  University  and  Train- 
ing School  for  teachers.  "  It  is  not  so  much  in  any 
one  direction  that  we  help  the  schools,"  writes  one 
of  the  leaders  of  the  women's  clubs,  "but  by  using 
and  creating  a  watchful  spirit  of  willingness  to 
cooperate,  when  the  time  comes,  on  the  part  of 
the  various  organizations  of  the  city."  This  read- 
iness of  the  active  clubs  of  the  city  to  respond  to 
116 


THE  SPHERE  OF  VOLUNTEER  HELP 

( 

a  need  and  to  be  called  together  like  a  volunteer 
militia,  —  could  anything  be  dearer  to  the  heart's 
desire  of  a  school  superintendent? 

Penny  luncheons  for  school  children  were  in- 
augurated in  Cincinnati  by  some  of  the  women's 
organizations,  and  in  many  instances  are  still 
managed  by  these  organizations.  The  vacation 
school  work  is  also  an  outgrowth  of  women's 
work,  and  each  year  certain  phases  of  it  are  still 
carried  on  by  them.  There  is  a  civic  commission  of 
women  who  have  just  taken  hold  of  the  dance-hall 
question.  The  commission  will  probably  take  an 
active  interest  in  neighborhood  dances  and  sup- 
port Dr.  Condon's  plans  for  social  center  work  in 
the  schools. 

In  Cincinnati  also  the  Child  Labor  Committee, 
the  Schmidlapp  Bureau,  and  the  School  Board 
are  working  together  to  study  and  to  place  the 
boys  and  girls  who  leave  school  at  fourteen,  when, 
in  the  wise  modern  way,  a  helping  hand  is  offered 
to  each  child  as  he  crosses  the  difficult  narrow 
bridge  between  school  and  work.  Each  of  the 
boys  and  girls  who  are  tested  for  working  capac- 
ity are  registered,  and  on  changing  work  come 
back  for  a  new  certificate  and,  what  is  better,  for 
friendly  counsel.  Cincinnati  is  one  of  the  fortu- 
nate cities  that  has  a  special  fund  of  $250,000  for 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

helping  women  and  girls  in  education  and  work. 
The  fund  was  given  by  Mr.  J.  G.  Schmidlapp  as 
a  living  memorial  of  his  daughter.  There  will 
be  more  such  funds  available  for  schools  as  the 
schools  cultivate  the  desire  of  the  public  to  help 
them. 

The  Philadelphia  Public  Education  Associa- 
tion, like  that  of  New  York,  has  made  it  a  part  of 
its  working  creed  to  study  the  government  and 
management  of  the  public  schools,  and  through 
such  study  achieve  power  to  scale  the  legisla- 
tive wall  and  batter  the  ramparts  of  entrenched 
finance  when  need  comes. 

This  affiliation  between  school  boards  and  well- 
organized  private  associations,  which  like  those 
of  New  York  and  of  Philadelphia  make  it  a  part 
of  their  aim  to  unite  all  citizens  in  the  service  of 
the  schools,  is  of  great  importance.  The  account 
of  these  two  associations  must  suffice  to  picture 
the  hopes  or  the  fulfillment  of  many  others.  All 
associations  of  this  type  are  pointing  with  pro- 
phetic fingers  to  a  time  when  certain  of  the  most 
wise  and  steadfast  groups  of  private  citizens  shall 
have  a  quasi -official  relation  to  public  school 
boards.  The  day  is  coming,  yea  and  now  is,  when 
we  shall  harvest  and  garner  the  help  of  expert  cit- 
118 


THE  SPHERE  OF  VOLUNTEER  HELP 

izens  and  of  loyal  societies  for  educational  prog- 
ress. This  help  will  in  part  take  the  form  of  vis- 
iting and  advisory  committees  of  citizens.  In 
New  York  City  there  are  already,  by  law,  local 
school  boards  for  each  district  which  have  the 
power  of  visiting,  inspecting,  and  reporting  the 
needs  of  public  schools.  In  Massachusetts,  as  the 
outcome  of  a  state  law,  every  state-aided  voca- 
tional school  must  have  an  advisory  committee 
approved  by  its  board  of  trustees  and  confirmed 
by  the  Massachusetts  Board  of  Education.  Here, 
for  example,  is  the  advisory  committee  to  the 
Trade  School  for  Girls.  Women  of  distinction  are 
glad  to  serve  on  it.  There  an  Agricultural  School 
for  boys  calls  the  best  farmers  and  professors  to 
its  aid.  In  Boston  the  public  High  School  of  Com- 
merce has  been  steadily  and  effectively  helped 
by  an  advisory  board  of  business  men.  One  of 
these,  an  eminent  lawyer  keenly  interested  in  ed- 
ucation, has  given  many  hours  of  service  to  this 
school.  "I  believe  we  have  really  accomplished 
something  there,"  he  says  modestly.  Those  who 
know  him  know  that  his  help  is  a  hundredfold 
more  than  he  says.  This  committee  of  business 
men,  having  studied  the  activities  of  the  High 
School  of  Commerce,  are  able  to  make  definite 
recommendations  to  improve  the  work  of  the 
119 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

school.  An  advisory  committee  of  a  very  different 
type  is  that  on  School  Hygiene  appointed  by 
the  Boston  School  Board.  A  group  of  doctors, 
called  together  by  the  director  of  physical  train- 
ing, discuss  athletics,  school  -  feeding,  including 
the  ethics  of  accepting  patent  foods  free,  open- 
air  rooms,  their  temperature,  and  the  necessary 
clothing  for  the  children. 

The  significant  point  in  all  this  dramatic  his- 
tory is  not  that  here  and  there  important  results 
have  been  accomplished  by  private  funds  for  the 
public  schools.  The  shining  fact  is  that  a  gold 
mine  of  the  will  to  help  is  in  our  midst.  There  is 
alloy  in  the  gold ;  it  will  not  always  be  easy  to  sift 
it  out;  but  of  pure  gold  in  the  soul  of  volunteer 
helpers  of  the  schools,  I  can  testify. 


X 

THE  GUIDANCE  OF  VOLUNTEER  HELPERS 

IF,  then,  significant  and  valuable  help  is  already 
given  by  volunteers  to  the  public  schools,  if  al- 
ready overtures  that  began  shyly  and  aloof  have 
become  a  friendly  alliance,  what  ought  to  be  the 
attitude  of  teachers  and  of  volunteer  helpers  to- 
ward the  future  of  this  movement  ? 

In  the  first  place,  readiness  on  the  part  of  the 
school  to  listen  sympathetically  to  what  the  pub- 
lic wants,  and  then  to  guide,  restrain,  reject,  or 
encourage  the  plan  proposed.  And  this  must 
go  along  with  equal  readiness  on  the  part  of  the 
would-be  helper  to  understand  school  conditions; 
to  be  humble,  though  enthusiastic;  to  take  sim- 
ple jobs,  and  when  necessary,  to  be  turned  down 
without  offense.  It  means,  in  short,  that  school 
man  and  volunteer  shall  learn  to  get  on. 

It  is  not  always  easy  to  get  on  with  enthusiastic 
volunteers.  The  zealous,  lynx-eyed,  one-ideaed 
benevolent  individual  is  frankly  a  nuisance  to  the 
school  superintendent  or  teacher.  Such  people 
cling  like  a  burr;  we  cannot  away  with  them.  It 
is  a  temptation  to  pull  them  off  one's  sleeves  at 

121 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

once.  "He  haunts  me!"  I  once  heard  a  genial 
principal  say,  referring  to  a  glossy-tongued,  lei- 
surely reformer  of  schools.  "  He  must  have  a  spe- 
cial grudge  against  me."  Oh,  no,  not  at  all!  He 
was  simply  blind  to  the  claims  of  all  other  school 
work,  save  that  of  his  beloved  panacea.  He  was 
infallibly  sure  that  his  reform  was  the  one  thing 
needful.  It  was  strange  to  him  that  the  teacher 
did  not  at  once  leave  all  and  follow  his  lead.  Like 
all  fanatics,  he  lacked  even  a  rudimentary  tail  of 
humor.  Yet  even  the  persistent  boring  reformer 
may  be  a  blessing  in  disguise  —  very  decidedly 
in  disguise.  It  develops  strength  of  character  and 
skill  to  learn  to  rid  one's  self  quite  graciously  of 
bores,  and  even  more  so  to  distinguish  between 
the  bore  who  has  nothing  to  say  and  the  bore  who 
has  something  important  to  say,  but  says  it  very 
badly.  And,  fortunately,  most  school  helpers 
have  something  to  say  and  with  assistance  learn 
to  say  it  well,  or  become  convinced  that  what  the 
head  of  the  school  has  to  say  is  what  they  really 
meant.  In  any  event,  the  teacher  must  learn  to 
get  on  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  visitors, 
for  of  such  is  our  democracy.  I  do  not,  of  course, 
mean  that  the  superintendent  should  accept  all 
that  is  offered  to  him.  There  is  and  ought  to  be 
a  resistant  quality  in  the  head  of  a  school. 
122 


GUIDANCE  OF  VOLUNTEER  HELPERS 

i/ 

"Give  every  man  thine  ear,  but  few  thy  voice; 
Take  each  man's  censure,  but  reserve  thy  judgment." 

The  school  superintendent  is  sure  to  meet  worthy 
individuals  who  propose  worthless  or  inappropri- 
ate experiments.  Yet  even  with  some  of  these  en- 
thusiasts, Mr.  John  Jay  Chapman's  brilliant  rule 
for  successful  argument  may  well  be  effective: 
"  First  get  your  opponent's  point.  Then  move 
the  point;  he  follows."  The  untrained  critic,  who 
wants  entirely  to  make  over  the  schools,  often 
turns  out  to  be  a  loose-growing  but  luxuriant 
vine,  ready  to  respond  to  training  up  the  school- 
house  wall. 

School  Needs  and  School  Reports 

Second,  the  school  head  can  help  the  general 
public  to  respond  to  his  special  needs  by  making 
them  clear  and  picturesque  through  the  news- 
papers and  in  his  annual  report.  Reports  are  pa- 
thetic beings,  often  misunderstood.  Because  they 
are  dry,  they  serve  but  to  light  the  hearth-fire  in- 
stead of  the  soul  of  the  house-father. 

An  author  once  wrote  to  me,  "  Please  read  my 
essay  carefully.  It's  something  that  I  care  about 
very  much,  —  not  just  another  book."  But  de- 
spite his  appeal,  I  could  not  get  through  the  shell 
123 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

of  his  book.  The  kernel  was  too  heavily  covered. 
It  is  possible,  however,  to  write  really  succulent 
reports,  and  good  models  are  at  hand.1  The  most 
searching  questions  one  can  answer  in  writing  a 
school  report  are  two:  What  is  it  that  makes  this 
work,  and  especially  this  last  year's  work,  vitally 
interesting  to  me?  What  is  it  that  I,  as  a  parent, 
would  most  want  to  know  about  the  needs,  the 
hopes,  the  achievement  of  the  public  schools? 
Following  these  two  questions  comes  the  third 
that  links  them  to  the  written  word.  In  what 
form  (through  photographs,  detailed  instances, 
charts,  symbols)  can  I  reach  my  enthusiasm  for 
the  schools  across  the  gap  to  the  mind  of  a  busy 
parent  or  school  helper? 

One  paragraph  is  sure  to  be  noticed  by  the 
reader.  It  tells  what  his  or  her  association  has 
done  for  the  schools  and  includes  a  word  of  ap- 
preciation thereof.  Such  paragraphs  will  light  to 
his  eyes  even  a  very  long-worded  report.  In  any 
report  intended  to  develop  the  right  kind  of  vol- 
unteer and  expert  help,  courteous  acknowledg- 
ment of  past  favors  and  suggestions  for  possible 

1  See  School  Efficiency  and  School  Reports,  by  David  Snedden 
and  William  H.  Allen,  and  the  stimulating  chapter  on  "Pub- 
licity and  School  Needs,"  in  Helping  School  Children,  by  Elsa 
Denison. 

124 


GUIDANCE  OF  VOLUNTEER  HELPERS 

favors  to  come  must  be  prominent.1  Then  see 
that  your  report  gets  safely  to  the  reader.  In 
Boston  the  admirable  report  of  1912  was  ad- 
dressed directly  to  parents,  and  was  in  many  cases 
carried  to  them  with  a  letter  written  by  one 
of  their  older  school  children.  Reports  should,  of 
course,  be  sent  to  all  organizations  that  have 
helped  the  schools  in  any  way.  All  of  us  have 
a  secret  hunger  to  know  that  we  are  wanted,  to 
have  our  work  recognized,  to  be  told  specifically 
what  is  needed. 

Reports  should  also  suggest  ways  of  helpful- 
ness. "What  can  I  do  to  help?"  asks  the  volun- 
teer. The  needs  of  a  school  system  are  endlessly 
varied.  The  college  graduate  can  make  a  spe- 
cial study  of  retarded  children,  the  merchant  can 
back  up  a  bill  for  continuation  schools,  the  ath- 
lete can  train  the  high  school  baseball  team,  the 
mother  can  offer  chaperonage  at  reunions,  the 
trained  singer  can  teach  choral  classes,  the  farmer 
can  lend  a  bit  of  land  for  a  school  garden,  the  doc- 
tor can  give  advice  about  the  best  form  of  medical 
inspection,  the  woman's  club  can  supply  the  sal- 
ary of  a  school  nurse. 

1  See  the  excellent  list  of  suggestions  in  Outside  Cooperation 
with  the  Public  Schools  of  Greater  New  York,  p.  26,  Bureau  of 
Municipal  Research,  New  York. 

125 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

Best  Types  of  Volunteer  Help 
Clearly,  the  volunteer  coming  with  desire  to 
help  the  school  must  learn  to  make  crisp  and 
plain  to  the  school  authorities  what  he  wants  to 
do.  Time  is  more  precious  than  money  and  the 
patient  principal  cannot  wisely  put  up  with  bur- 
glars of  hours  and  pickpockets  of  minutes.  Not 
to  steal  time  by  apologizing,  not  to  steal  time  by 
vagueness,  and  not  to  steal  time  by  repetition,  to 
know  what  one  wants  to  say  and  how  to  say  it  in 
orderly  fashion,  —  this  is  the  first  duty  of  a  vol- 
unteer and  one  of  his  first  lessons  in  how  to  help. 
There  are  many  instances  of  weak  and  strong 
efforts  to  help  the  schools.  We  all  know  the 
provoking  type  of  volunteer,  nagging,  insistent, 
armed  with  a  plea  that  verges  in  a  threat,  "We 
will  do  this  for  a  few  years,  but  you  must  take 
the  experiment  over."  We  know  the  intermit- 
tent, unreliable  activity  that  starts  a  fire  only  to 
let  it  die  out.  We  know  the  prejudiced  volunteer 
who  pushes  a  special  interest  and  expects  that  the 
teacher  will  make  all  school  work  center  round 
it. 

The  best  types  of  volunteer  help  to  schools  are 

usually  those  welcomed,  guided,  pruned,  if  need 

be,   by  sympathetic  school  authorities. 

126 


GUIDANCE  OF  VOLUNTEER  HELPERS 

would  seem  a  groaning  burden  added  to  the  tired 
shoulders  of  the  schoolmaster  were  it  not  for  the 
fact  that  before  very  long  the  volunteer  begins  to 
carry  part  of  the  school  load.  Here,  to  give  an 
example,  is  an  amateur  keenly  interested  in  boys 
and  girls  at  the  difficult  period  of  fourteen  to 
eighteen  years.  Her  children  are  grown  up  and 
do  not  need  daily  care,  but  her  love  for  children 
blossoms  perennially.  She  offers  through  her  as- 
sociation both  salaried  and  volunteer  workers 
to  carry  on  a  small  experimental  social  center, 
if  the  school  board  will  give  light,  heat,  and  the 
use  of  the  hall.  The  principal  of  the  school  at 
first  finds  it  an  added  responsibility  to  watch  her 
work.  She  makes  mistakes.  One  night  the  center 
is  too  noisy;  here  and  there  an  unsuccessful  vol- 
unteer fails  to  hold  the  class.  But  the  principal 
himself  has  made  mistakes.  He  has  learned  to 
judge  by  whole  results,  not  by  fragments.  He 
talks  the  matter  over  with  his  friendly  helper  who 
is  eager  to  follow  his  wishes.  He  finds  that  she  has 
been  traveling  at  her  own  expense  to  study  in 
other  cities  the  best  plan  for  recreation  centers. 
She  has  got  a  firmer  hold  on  the  right  way  of  run- 
ning such  clubs  than  she  had  at  the  start.  She 
suggests  and  carries  through  plans  of  self-govern- 
ment among  the  young  men  and  girls.  She  puts 
127 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

responsibility  where  it  belongs  by  giving  them 
offices  and  making  them  concern  themselves  with 
the  care  of  the  building  and  the  orderliness  of  the 
meetings.  As  the  clubs,  with  their  varied  pro- 
grams of  music,  drama,  basket-ball,  and  civic  de- 
bate, succeed,  she  suggests  having  one  room  where 
a  vocational  adviser  can  meet  any  of  the  boys  and 
girls  who  want  to  talk  over  their  work  with  her. 
The  adviser  studies  the  character  and  ability  of 
the  applicant,  finds  out  his  difficulties  and  de- 
sires, urges  him  to  keep  a  place  or  suggests  one 
that  he  can  try.  This  union  of  recreation  with  a 
chance  to  talk  about  to-morrow's  work  proves 
most  successful.  It  is  established  as  a  regular 
part  of  the  social  center. 

An  account  of  the  work  of  this  particular  center 
is  written  up  by  a  local  paper.  It  excites  great  in- 
terest. The  plan  is  studied  and  copied  in  other 
places.  The  volunteer  who  started  it  is  asked  to 
speak  North  and  South.  The  school  principal  finds 
his  centers  are  thought  of  as  a  model.  And  mean- 
while the  amateur,  who  long  has  ridden  her  pet 
hobby  of  school  centers,  has  become  an  expert 
rider.  She  is  professional  in  her  standards  of 
work,  her  insight  into  conditions,  her  judgment 
of  the  right  kind  of  teachers,  her  ability  to  present 
her  cause.  With  her  resources  of  time,  money, 
128 


GUIDANCE  OF  VOLUNTEER  HELPERS 

and  experience  she  becomes  within  her  field  a 
right-hand  man  to  the  superintendent. 

The  Training  of  School  Helpers 

As  the  public  schools  recognize  and  accept  the 
help  of  outside  associations,  there  will  come  a 
need  and  demand  for  the  training  of  outside  help- 
ers to  the  schools  along  these  newer  lines  of  social 
service.  In  New  York,  Chicago,  Philadelphia,  St. 
Louis,  and  Boston,  there  are  established  schools 
for  the  training  of  social  workers.  Already  we 
train  volunteers  as  workers  in  hospital  social  serv- 
ice, as  playground  leaders,  as  friendly  visitors  to 
the  needy.  But  work  to  further  the  public  schools 
in  their  aims  of  health,  vocational  training,  recrea- 
tion, and  citizenship  is  surely  in  the  largest  sense 
social  work.  We  need  qualified  volunteer  helpers, 
but  perhaps  most  of  all  the  training  of  young  men 
and  women  to  appreciate  and  understand  the 
aims  of  public  education,  so  that  as  citizens,  par- 
ents, and  school  helpers,  they  will  do  their  part 
wisely  in  electing  school  boards,  in  working  for  the 
budget,  in  supporting  the  best  ends  of  education. 

We  must  strengthen  and  uphold  the  educa- 
tional departments  of  our  colleges  and  draw  them 
closely  into  touch  with  the  public  schools.  Enter- 
prising college  professors  are  already  giving  credit 
129 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

in  their  classes  for  work  done  to  help  the  schools. 
At  Harvard,  Radcliffe,  Wellesley,  and  Boston 
University  the  professors  of  the  departments  of 
education  and  economics  welcomed  and  sup- 
ported an  investigation  by  members  of  their 
classes  into  the  opportunities  for  vocational  train- 
ing in  and  near  Boston.  A  number  of  the  stu- 
dents became  so  interested  in  schools  through  this 
study  that  they  have  since  given  their  services  as 
volunteers.  One  of  the  graduate  students  after- 
ward devoted  himself,  at  the  request  of  the  school 
authorities,  to  making  a  list  of  all  private  asso- 
ciations helping  the  Boston  schools. 

The  colleges  are  equipped  to  give  students  such 
well-guided  study  and  research.  But  training  for 
special  branches  of  work,  such  as  home  and  school 
visiting,  vocational  guidance,  leadership  in  play- 
grounds and  recreation  centers,  will  best  be  given 
through  the  lectures  and  field  work  of  some  school 
for  social  workers.  Much  of  this  training  will  lead 
to  paid  professional  work,  but  in  every  large 
group  there  will  also  be  amateurs  who  want  to 
learn  to  be  of  value  to  the  public  schools.  In  New 
York,  Boston,  Philadelphia,  groups  of  several  hun- 
dred girls  of  leisure  have  united  in  a  league  whose 
object  is  civic  and  social  helpfulness.  Out  of  their 
abundance  they  want  to  give  each  her  share  of 
130 


GUIDANCE  OF  VOLUNTEER  HELPERS 

helpfulness.  With  definite  training  a  number  of 
these  volunteers  would  prove  of  real  value  to  our 
schools.  Young  women  often  come  back  from 
college  to  a  life  of  comparative  leisure  at  home. 
For  several  years  they  may  have  time  and  trained 
ability  to  give  freely  to  the  service  of  the  public 
schools.  I  have  in  mind  one  young  woman  who 
graduated  from  college,  —  summa  cum  laude,  — 
with  highest  honors  in  English.  She  had  time  and 
means.  Fortunately  she  had  not  only  means  but 
ends.  Since  leaving  college  she  has  given  a  large 
slice  of  her  life  to  helping  a  public  trade  school  for 
girls.  The  work  seemed  to  her  so  life-giving  that 
within  a  few  years  she  organized  a  kind  of  em- 
ployment bureau  for  volunteer  college  graduates, 
like  herself,  wherein  they  could  learn  of  varied 
opportunities  for  service  and  offer  themselves  for 
full  or  part-time  work.  The  next  step  is  to  train 
such  service. 

Our  American  nation  was  once  in  the  period  of 
youthful  self-assurance  regarding  any  task ;  when, 
like  the  man  asked  whether  he  could  play  the 
violin,  it  was  wont  to  answer,  "  I  don't  know ;  I ' ve 
never  tried."  That  time  has  passed.  In  all  pub- 
lic service  we  need  trained  helpers.  Volunteers 
who  would  help  the  public  schools  must  them- 
selves be  experts  in  their  own  line,  be  it  the  teach- 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

ing  of  swimming,  advice  about  work,  or  the  or- 
ganization of  a  parents'  association.  When  train- 
ing to  help  in  the  extra-classroom  activities  of 
the  schools  is  recognized  as  a  new  opportunity, 
the  force  of  public  support  of  the  schools  will  be 
more  than  trebled. 


Democracy  and  Help  to  the  Schools 

Like  the  branches  of  a  great  oak,  the  school  is 
penetrating  far  from  its  main  trunk.  But  the 
branches  spread  only  in  order  that  each  individual 
twig  and  acorn  shall  have  the  light  and  air  it 
needs.  We  are  learning  that  the  school  cannot 
live  alone.  It  must  unite  itself  with  the  whole  life 
of  the  children  it  serves,  —  their  health,  their 
play,  their  work,  their  home,  their  future  ties  of 
friendship  and  family.  One,  among  the  wisest  of 
our  educators,  has  written,  —  "It  is  socially  ex- 
pedient and  necessary  that  all  educational  pur- 
poses which  other  agencies  will  not  voluntarily 
assume  shall  be  realized  in  and  by  the  public 
school  in  some  form."  l  All  educational  purposes ! 
Such  a  valiant  statement  might  well  terrify  those 
who  dread  the  encroachment  of  the  school  into 

1  David  Snedden,  Educational  Readjustment,  p.  n.  Hough- 
ton  Mifflin  Company. 

132 


GUIDANCE  OF  VOLUNTEER  HELPERS 

the  former  sphere  of  the  home,  were  it  not  for  a 
counter-current. 

The  homes  are  flooding  in  to  help  the  schools, 
offering  hands  and  minds  and  purses.  No  move- 
ment in  a  democracy  can  be  wholly  good  if  it 
drives  the  home  into  less  and  less  importance, 
less  and  less  responsibility.  What  is  happening 
all  about  us  is  that  school  and  home  have  realized 
their  common  interests  and  are  shaking  hands 
over  them.  Parents  are  more  and  more  interested 
in  schools  in  proportion  as  the  schools  take  up 
health,  work  and  play.  The  general  and  particular 
public  (merchants,  doctors,  women's  clubs,  child- 
welfare  workers,  judges  in  juvenile  courts),  who 
are  also  fathers  and  mothers,  actually  or  in  spirit, 
are  more  and  more  interested  in  schools  as  they 
touch  physical,  civic,  and  ethical  themes.  To  in- 
crease, to  interlink,  to  make  clear  and  effective 
these  common  ties  is  the  ideal.  School  and  home 
must  work  together  and  the  work  must  be  mu- 
tual. This  book  presents  evidence  that  fathers, 
mothers,  sisters,  cousins,  and  aunts  are  eager  to 
help  the  school.  We  all  know  that  thousands  of 
teachers  are  working  to  help  children  and  seeking 
for  the  cooperation  of  parents.  It  is  not  as  yet  the 
same  parent  who  is  helping  the  school  and  whom 
the  school  is  longing  to  help,  but  the  two  sides  are 

133 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

running  to  meet  one  another  as  folks  at  the  ends 
of  a  Virginia  reel  skip  down  the  aisle  to  join  right 
hands. 

There  is  still  another  tie  in  this  interaction  of 
home  and  school.  The  school  is  just  beginning  to 
invite  the  home  to  weave  a  few  strong  threads  on 
the  loom  of  education.  In  two  directions  this  be- 
ginning is  already  significant.  In  some  public  ag- 
ricultural schools  the  boys  are  given  school  credit 
for,  and  spend  the  greater  part  of  their  school 
time  in,  work  on  their  own  fathers'  farms.  One 
large  agricultural  school  in  western  Massachu- 
setts was  offered  the  gift  of  a  fine  herd  of  cows. 
The  director  refused  them.  He  wanted  the  boys 
to  bring  the  cows  and  horses  on  their  family  farms 
up  to  a  high  standard.  He  needed  the  help  of  the 
home  because  the  home  was  free  from  artificial 
conditions.  The  homes  are  beginning  to  open 
hospitable  doors  to  the  domestic  science  classes. 
The  department  of  household  arts  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts vocational  schools  has  been  helped,  as  a 
part  of  its  regular  course,  by  cooking-lessons  and 
entertainments  carried  on  by  the  class  in  the  home 
of  one  of  their  members. 

Thus  we  see  three  currents  borne  onward  by  the 
tide  of  the  social  movement  of  our  schools.  Many 
a  volunteer  helper  is  coming  with  suggestions, 

134 


GUIDANCE  OF  VOLUNTEER  HELPERS 

with  funds,  with  workers  to  endow  the  new  school 
movement  toward  health,  recreation,  employ- 
ment, citizenship,  and  preparation  for  family  life. 
The  school  officials  are  coming  to  see  that  they 
need  in  these  newer  issues  the  help  of  trained 
amateurs.  On  the  crest  of  these  two  waves, 
whitens  the  foam  of  a  third.  The  homes  are  be- 
ginning to  welcome  the  teaching  of  such  special 
subjects  as  dairy-work,  cooking,  poultry-raising, 
vegetable  gardening,  in  their  own  surroundings. 
All  three  movements  are  part  of  what  it  is  easy 
to  call  and  difficult  to  define  as  the  socializing  of 
the  schools.  At  bottom  the  socializing  of  schools 
must  mean  the  effort  to  see  the  life  of  the  children 
as  a  whole,  rather  than  to  treat  them  as  reservoirs 
to  hold  a  given  amount  of  arithmetic,  grammar, 
and  history. 

When  a  teacher  is  freed  for  a  few  moments  from 
the  effort  to  reach  the  end  of  a  lesson  or  tie  se- 
curely on  the  childish  back  a  number  of  impor- 
tant facts,  then  she  may  suddenly  see  the  small 
person  himself,  —  energetic  or  fragile  in  health, 
bubbling  over  with  play,  ignorant  of  standards 
in  manners  and  morals,  soon  to  be  thrust  quite 
unprepared  and  hopeful  out  into  the  world  of 
hard-handed  work,  of  unexpected  temptation,  of 
exposure  to  disease,  of  civic  and  family  responsi- 

135 


VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  SCHOOLS 

bility.  Seeing  this,  the  teacher  cannot  but  long 
to  give  her  children  the  best  help  in  sight,  and 
she  turns  wherever  help  is  to  be  found.  The  play- 
ground leader,  the  story-teller,  the  picture-lover, 
the  musician,  the  enthusiast  for  good  citizenship, 
the  student  of  the  needs  of  girls  will  all  be  her 
allies.  As  the  ideals  of  education  grow  year  by 
year,  the  public  school-teacher  has  come  to  be  an 
Atlas  trying  to  uphold  the  entire  world  of  chil- 
dren's need.  Her  shoulders  are  naturally  weary. 
Who  will  share  a  little  of  the  weight  of  her  load? 
And  the  answer  comes  from  many  a  group  of  citi- 
zens, "Let  us  carry  a  part." 

This  movement  is  democratic;  it  comes  from 
the  people.  It  adds  to  the  technical  side  of  educa- 
tion a  new  chord,  health,  training  for  trade,  rec- 
reation, preparation  for  manhood.  School  men 
are  surely  thinking  of  these  things,  but  they  are 
troubled  about  many  things  besides.  The  up- 
lifted hands  of  the  people  are  ready  to  sustain  the 
great  structure  of  social  life  in  the  schools.  The 
schoolmaster  has  a  new  task,  —  he  must  train  not 
only  the  pupils,  but  the  volunteer  helpers;  guide 
not  only  the  teachers,  but  the  zealous  public. 
And  verily  he  will  have  his  reward,  for  the  people 
of  America  are  forever  the  feeding  spring  of  sup- 
port to  the  public  schools.  If  their  fountain  of 

136 


GUIDANCE  OF  VOLUNTEER  HELPERS 

faith  grows  dry,  the  schoolmaster  might  as  well 
shut  up  shop.  But  the  well-spring  of  the  people's 
hope  will  leap  up  into  bounteous  showers  just  as 
long  as  it  has  a  chance  to  express  itself  through 
service. 


OUTLINE 

I.  SOURCES  OF  OUTSIDE  HELP  TO  THE 
PUBLIC  SCHOOLS 

The  perpetual  appeal  of  the  public  schools     ...  I 

Early  forms  of  volunteer  help 2 

The  domain  of  the  school  enlarged  by  help  from  citi- 
zens    3 

From  whom  does  help  come? 6 

Organized  efforts 8 

Classification  of  types  of  service n 

II.   VOLUNTEER   SERVICE  IN  RELATION  TO 
HEALTH 

Medical  inspection 15 

Care  of  delicate  children 16 

School  visitors  and  housing  conditions 17 

The  feebleminded 19 

The  value  of  trained  social  workers 20 

III.   RECREATION  UNDER  GUIDANCE 

School  gardening 23 

Social  centers 28 

Athletics 32 

Vacation  schools 33 

Playgrounds 4° 

IV.  THE  ENJOYMENT  OF  ART 

Opportunities  offered  by  museums  of  fine  arts     .    .  43 

Opportunities  offered  by  museums  of  science  ...  49 

Music 5° 

139 


OUTLINE 

V.  TRAINING  FOR  WORK 

Vocational  guidance 52 

Study  of  vocational  schools 54 

Study  of  relation  of  child  labor  to  education   ...  56 

Employment  supervision 58 

Placement  and  oversight 61 

Classes  in  salesmanship 70 

VI.  TRAINING  FOR  CITIZENSHIP 

Moral  training 75 

City  history  clubs  and  school  cities 77 

Traveling  exhibit  of  city  conditions 78 

Appointment  by  merit 80 

Good  will  expressed  in  service 83 

VII.  TRAINING  FOR  FAMILY  TIES 

Sex  education 86 

Supervised  dances 92 

East  Boston  opportunity  clubs 93 

The  help  of  librarians 96 

Indirect  training  for  social  responsibility    ....    98 
The  development  of  moral  thoughtfulness  ....  102 

VIII.  NEW  DEMANDS  ON  THE  SCHOOLS 

Adoption  of  what  once  was  private  work    ....  105 

New  and  taxing  functions 106 

Schools  as  centers  of  great  expectations       .    .    .    .106 
A  survey  of  new  fields 107 

IX.  THE  SPHERE  OF  VOLUNTEER  HELP 

The  encouragement  of  volunteer  help in 

Value  of  volunteers  in  initiating  experiments  .    .     .113 

140 


OUTLINE 

In  giving  expert  counsel  and  aid 114 

As  a  sustaining  force  in  the  community      .     .     .     .115 
As  a  quasi-official  advisory  board 118 

X.  THE  GUIDANCE  OF  VOLUNTEER  HELPERS 

Treatment  of  bores 121 

Appeal  for  volunteers  through  school  reports  .    .    .123 

Best  types  of  volunteer  help 126 

The  training  of  school  helpers 129 

Through  colleges 130 

Through  schools  for  social  workers 130 

New  relations  of  homes  to  schools 133 

New  relations  of  schools  to  homes 134 

The  lifting  power  of  public  interest  in  schools     .    .135 


RIVERSIDE  EDUCATIONAL 
MONOGRAPHS 

GENERAL  EDUCATIONAL  THEORY 

xWSWET's  MORAL  PRINCIPLES  IN  EDUCATION 35 

ELIOT'S  EDUCATION  FOR  EFFICIENCY 35 

ELIOT'S  TENDENCY  TO  THE  CONCRETE  AND  PRACTICAL  IN  MOD- 
ERN EDUCATION 3D 

EMERSON'S  EDUCATION 3D 

FISKE'S  THE  MEANING  OF  INFANCY 30 

HYDE'S  THE  TEACHER'S  PHILOSOPHY 30 

PALMER'S  THE  IDEAL  TEACHER 30 

PROSSER'S  THE  TEACHER  AND  OLD  AGE 60 

TKRMAN'S  THE  TEACHER'S  HEALTH 60 

THOBNDIKE'S  INDIVIDUALITY SB 

ADMINISTRATION  AND  SUPERVISION  OF  SCHOOLS 

BETTS'S  NEW  IDEALS  IN  RURAL  SCHOOLS 60 

BLOOMFIELD'S  VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  OF  YOUTH 60 

CABOT'S  VOLUNTEER  HELP  TO  THE  SCHOOLS 69 

CUBBERLEY'S  CHANGING  CONCEPTIONS  OF  EDUCATION 80 

CUBBEBLEY'S  THE  IMPROVEMENT  OF  RURAL  SCHOOLS 35 

PERRY'S  STATUS  OF  THE  TEACHER 85 

SNEDDEN'S  THE  PROBLEM  OF  VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION 35 

TROWBRIDGE'S  THEHOME  SCHOOL 60 

WEEKS'S  THE  PEOPLE'S  SCHOOL 60 

METHODS  OF  TEACHING 

BAILKT'S  ART  EDUCATION 60 

BETTS'S  THE  RECITATION 60 

CAMPAGNAC'S  THE  TEACHING  OF  COMPOSITION 35 

COOLE Y'S  LANGUAGE  TEACHING  IN  THE  GRADES 30 

DEWEY'S  INTEREST  AND  EFFORT  IN  EDUCATION 60 

EARHART'S  TEACHING  CHILDREN  TO  STUDY 60 

EVANS'S  TEACHING  OF  HIGH  SCHOOL  MATHEMATICS 30 

HALIBURTON  AND  SMITH'S  TEACHING  POETRY  IN  THE  GRADES 60 

HARTWELL'S  THE  TEACHING  OF  HISTORY 35 

PALMER'S  ETHICAL  AND  MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  THE  SCHOOLS..    .35 

PALMER'S  SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH 30 

SUZZALLO'S  THE  TEACHING  OF  PRIMARY  ARITHMETIC 60 

Buzz ALLO'S  THE  TEACHING  OF  SPELLING 60 

Hougltton  Mifflin  Company 

Boston  New  York  Chicago 

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